A survey of attitudes of medical staff in palliative medicine toward Psycho-spiritual care

Comparative study in Japan and Taiwan

Abstract

The focal point of this paper is to investigate the aspects of psycho-spiritual care in palliative care in Japan and Taiwan. It based on a questionnaire and a comparative study. In this paper, ”psycho-spiritual care”includes psychological care in a narrow sense and religious care in broad sense. A questionnaire survey was conducted from December 2008 to March 2009.The hospitals were non-religious facilities and the respondents were 81 medical practitioners, 40 in Japan and 41 in Taiwan. They responded to 18 questions concerning background, 8 concerning aspects of psycho-spiritual care and 10 questions to describe their experience in and opinions about psycho-spiritual care. The results were analyzed with a chi-squared test. We have found some differences in education systems, views of religion, views of life and death, and the views of ethics and culture between the two countries. We have also found an important difference in the administration of psychospiritual care. Taiwan currently employs national policies to regulate and govern the provision of psycho-spiritual care whereas Japan has no such policies in place. Hospitals are therefore left to their own devices in these matters.