The role of spirituality in the COVID-19 pandemic: a spiritual hotline project

Abstract

Recent correspondence letters to the editor of this journal pointed out to the need of implementing psychological support during the pandemic and post-pandemic period to both general and frontline workers. Especially, they highlighted the importance of religious/spiritual interventions in order to provide an integral and holistic care. In this perspective, an important consequence of the social isolation is the closure of churches and the suspension of religious meetings in order to avoid agglomeration and contagion. However, although this is a very important approach in terms of public health, a question is raised: how to promote spiritual care and help spiritual/religious individuals to cope with their problems while maintaining compliance with social isolation? To address this question, we report the Spiritual Hotline Project, a project designed by many Brazilian healthcare workers intended to give spiritual and religious assistance to people with different cultural background. So far, the hotline was able to assist people from different parts of the world, including Brazil and Portugal as well as with different religious affiliation, in order to provide a spiritual comfort and care during this public health crisis.

Keywords: COVID-19; hotline; religion; spirituality; support project.