Patients' perception of physician-initiated prayer prior to elective ophthalmologic surgery

Prayer is an important part of many patients' and physicians' lives. There is little data in the literature regarding patients' perception of prayer from or with their doctors.

To assess in a masked fashion patients' impression of prayer's role in a medical setting, and their perception of being offered and receiving prayer from their physician.

Confidential survey of 567 consecutive patients who were offered prayer by their physician before elective eye surgery.

Proportion of patients favoring physician-initiated prayer and weighted Likert responses to various positive and negative sentiments regarding their experience.

Survey response rate was 53% (300 patients). Ninety-six percent of patients identified themselves as Christian. At least 90% of Christian patients responded favorably toward their prayer experience to each Likert question. Among the non-Christian patients, the proportion of negative impressions to the prayer experience ranged from 0 to 25%.

Physician-initiated Christian-based prayer before surgery is well-received by a strong majority of Christian patients. Although the data are few, only a minority of non-Christians felt negatively regarding this experience.