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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Integrating spirituality into clinical practice and mental health care in Brazil: developments and future directions

Integration of spirituality into clinical practice and mental health care in brazil: advances and future directions

Three initiatives to incorporate spirituality into mental health care in Brazil offer complementary strategies for translating evidence into ethical and culturally sensitive practice.

Brazil is characterized by high levels of religious and spiritual engagement, marked religious diversity, and syncretism; these dimensions can provide protective resources such as meaning, hope, social support, and resilience during mental illness. In the face of global mental health challenges and the persistent treatment gap, community-based and culturally integrated strategies are considered valuable for expanding access to care. Studies in Brazil involving psychiatric inpatients and people with severe mental disorders have demonstrated the clinical relevance of spirituality, including its associations with quality of life and resilience; nevertheless, a religiosity gap persists between the importance patients place on spirituality and the limited attention professionals give it. This presentation introduces three Brazilian initiatives addressing this implementation gap: the clinical guidelines published by the Brazilian Psychiatric Association in 2023, focusing on spiritual history-taking and the differential diagnosis of spiritual experiences and psychopathology; a multicenter study evaluating the cross-cultural adaptation and feasibility of SPIRIT, a spiritually integrated psychotherapy protocol developed for inpatient settings; and the cultural adaptation of the World Health Organization's Group Interpersonal Therapy protocol for Brazilian primary care, taking patients' spiritual and religious resources into account (IPT-S). These projects illustrate complementary strategies, including professional guidance, culturally adapted interventions, and integration across levels of care. Future directions include implementation research, workforce training, patient and community engagement, and rigorous evaluation of feasibility, effectiveness, equity, and scalability.

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