DURHAM, N.C. -- When Terry Rimmer found out about the tumor in his spinal cord, he was shocked.

 

 

 “The doctor told me if I didn’t have an operation, that it eventually would kill me,” he said.

 

Terry decided to have the operation even though it could have left him confined to a wheelchair, or bed-ridden, for the rest of his life.

 

 “I just put my faith in the Lord,” Rimmer said.

 

A 2004 survey by the National Opinion Research Center found almost 86 percent of Americans, like Terry, believe in a higher power.  That same year, the American National Election Studies found 77 percent believe religion is an important part of life.

 

A group of psychiatrists at Duke University think that belief plays an important role in patients’ recovery and overall health.

 

Dr. Harold Koenig has been interested in the link between spirituality, theology and health for decades.  He first learned about the possible relationship from hospital patients when he was working as a nurse back in the 80s.

 

 “I would go in the morning and I would ask them, 'How do you cope? How are you getting by with this hip fracture, of this stroke or this heart attack?' and they would say, 'Well, you know, I pray, I read the Bible, I talk to God,'” he said.

 

However, he wondered if talking to God was helping them heal.  That’s a question that has gotten increasing attention over the last decade, including a recent article in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

 

To find answers, Dr. Koenig teamed up with Dr. Keith Meador in January of 2007 to form the Duke Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health.

 

In addition to ongoing research, the center brings doctors, theologians, scholars, and students together for classes, campus-wide discussions and international speakers.

 

Dr. John Swinton formed a center similar to the one at Duke at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

 

 “We have a number of research projects looking at precisely how, within mainstream services, how spirituality impacts upon mainstream care,” he said.

 

One question they wrestle with is what defines spirituality?

  

 “Sometimes, that’s thought of in a very religious framework within someone’s practice and involvement in a local church.  Sometimes it’s a very individualistic expression of their own subjective feelings in relationship to some sense of transcendence,” Dr. Keith Meador said.

 

Beliefs can be very different, but Swinton says one thing remains the same: faith in a higher power helps patients put their illnesses into perspective, even when they’re facing a debilitating, or even life-threatening condition.

 

 “It’s the idea that if we can think about our illness differently, and spirituality allows us to do that because you have a wider sense of meaning and purpose, and even though you’re out of control, we can frame our illness differently and respond differently,” Dr. Swinton said.

 

Dr. Meador says it’s important to understand the role those beliefs play in patients’ lives, and to take that role into account during treatment.

 

 “The degree to which I understand where they’re coming from in their own spiritual context and the degree to which they understand I’m honoring that, it may make a profound difference,” he said. “Part of what we’re wanting to understand is the degree of which, when patients talk about their spiritual lives in relationship to their health, what are they meaning?  And how do we best interpret that in service to their health?”

 

He says that interpretation depends upon the relationship they establish between health and spirituality.

 

“If I asked you what makes you healthy, it’s probably nothing at all to do with medicine.  It’s probably to do with your relationships, your values, your hopes for the future, your sense of meaning.  And if you’re a religious person, your relationship with God and whether that impacts your life,” Dr. Swinton said.

 

He says those relationships can improve a person’s quality of life.  Dr. Meador adds,

 

 “From a research perspective, what we’ve seen the most consistently is that people who are involved in religious life, communities of faith in a regular way, there is an association with better health.”

 

 “Study after study, looking at blood pressure and other physiological measures, shows connections between faith and health,” Dr. Koenig said.

 

 “We also found that people who are relying on religion to cope are less likely to develop depression given the same kind of illnesses everyone else has.  They’re just less depressed.”  Dr. Koenig adds,  “We also found that religiously-involved people, particularly who are involved in a faith community, live longer.”

 

For the people who are struggling through an injury or illness, Dr. Meador says faith keeps them going.

 

“Hope has a lot to do with outcomes,” he said.

 

That’s how Terry Rimmer says he overcame his struggles.  After a month in the ICU and later losing function of his left lung, arm, and leg, he is walking once again.

 

 “The Lord … the strength he give me helped me through,” he said.

 

Terry says that strength helped him survive, and it gave him more time with his wife and three children.