Religious and spiritual discussions do not frequently occur in ICUs, according to a new study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Although religious discussions are important to some patients, many healthcare professionals often go out of their way to avoid them, according to TIME.
Researchers listened to recordings of 249 goals-of-care meetings between physicians and surrogate decision makers of critically ill patients. The discussions took place in 13 ICUs across the country.
While religion was important to 77.6 percent of surrogates, such topics were brought up in less than 20 percent of the goals-of-care conversations. When religion was brought up, it was initiated by the surrogate 65 percent of the time and by the healthcare professional 5.6 percent of the time.
When a surrogate brought up religious topics, healthcare providers' most common response was to change the subject. Healthcare professionals made an effort to learn about a patient's religious beliefs in only eight of the 249 discussions.
"Our findings suggest that religious considerations — viewed as important to a large proportion of Americans — are often absent from end-of-life conversations," the authors wrote. "This may signal a need for changes in healthcare delivery in ICUs."