Espiritualidade e autocuidado na visão das práticas integrativas e complementares em saúde.

Abstract

The present study aimed to analyze the importance of spirituality in self-care and integral health of human beings who are subjected to treatments of Integrative and Complementary Health Practices. This work is a literature review that surveyed documents available in SCIELO, LILACS and VHL databases, CAPES/MEC journals, Google Scholar and literature related to the subject "spirituality, and integrative and complementary practices". The following keywords were used in the research: "spirituality and health", "self-care and integral health", "spirituality and religion", "integral health and ICHP". Studies of qualitative and quantitative analysis were used in Portuguese and English. The studies had as evaluated population, adults and elders from masculine and feminine gender. Studies involving children were excluded from the research. It was found that spirituality helps people by giving them purpose and meaning to cope with "unwanted" news and diseases. Furthermore, integrative care expands the variety of options of patients and can increase possibilities of success at all levels of health. It was concluded that the perception of the human spiritual body is not usually a common routine practice among health professionals. Therefore, it is expected that this study contributes to the insertion of spiritual care, along with the stimulus to scientific production, improvement, and training of professionals on this subject.