Health, Spirituality and Medical Ethics

Background and Objectives: Prayer is one of the most important religious ordinances and is one of the necessities of Islam. In spite of the progression of medicine science, it is sometimes seen that the mundane subjects become hopeless in curing physical diseases and this time, the hopeless man appeals to the Lord God. This review study was conducted to examine the positive and negative views regarding effectsof prayer on physical pains.

Methods: This review article was carried on by studying about 30 related original articles and different scientific texts. 

Results:In various studies, it is demonstrated that Islamic worships especially prayer are effective in treating most acute and chronic pains. But despite this, some studies indicate that there is no effectiveness or even there are negative effects of prayer on some physical pains.

Conclusion: With regard to the above mentioned results,most studies support the positive effects of prayer on physical pains. So the medical staffs should alsopay attention to this besides medicinal remedies. In addition, by emphasizing on and advertising aboutthe advantages of practices likeprayer in the treatment of chronic pains, it would be possible to prevent people, especially the youth, from taking inadmissible drugs such as alcohol, narcotics or other illegal drugs. Further studies are recommended to explore the effects of prayer on different acute and chronic physical pains.