Physician assistant program education on spirituality and religion in patient encounters.

Objective: To describe educational practices of physician assistant (PA) programs regarding spirituality and religion discussions during patient encounters. Patients want their health care provider to be aware of their spiritual and religious beliefs. This topic is addressed in physician and nursing education but may not be included in PA programs.

Methods: Data regarding curriculum were collected via electronic survey emailed to 143 PA programs across the United States.

Results: Thirty-eight programs responded for a response rate of 27%. Most (68.4%) program respondents reported students' desire to be trained to discuss spirituality and religion, yet 36.8% do not offer this training. Just over half (69.2%) would consider adding curriculum to teach students to discuss spirituality, but the majority (92.3%) would not add curriculum to discuss religion during patient encounters.

Conclusions: PA programs offer training to discuss spirituality in patient encounters but not to discuss religiosity. Programs may want to consider adding some curriculum to increase PAs awareness of spirituality and religion needs of patients.