Background: Chaplain-led communication-board-guided spiritual care may reduce anxiety and stress during an intensive care unit (ICU) admission for nonvocal mechanically ventilated patients, but clinical pastoral education does not teach the assistive communication skills needed to provide communication-board-guided spiritual care.
Objective: To evaluate a four-hour chaplain-led seminar to educate chaplains about ICU patients' psychoemotional distress, and train them in assistive communication skills for providing chaplain-led communication-board-guided spiritual care.
Design: A survey immediately before and after the seminar, and one-year follow-up about use of communication-board-guided spiritual care.
Subjects/Setting: Sixty-two chaplains from four U.S. medical centers.
Measurements: Multiple-choice and 10-point integer scale questions about ICU patients' mental health and communication-board-guided spiritual care best practices.
Results: Chaplain awareness of ICU sedation practices, signs of delirium, and depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder in ICU survivors increased significantly (all p < 0.001). Knowledge about using tagged yes/no questions to communicate with nonvocal patients increased from 38% to 87%, p < 0.001. Self-reported skill and comfort in providing communication-board-guided spiritual care increased from a median (interquartile range) score of 4 (2-6) to 7 (5-8) and 6 (4-8) to 8 (6-9), respectively (both p < 0.001). One year later, 31% of chaplains reported providing communication-board-guided spiritual care in the ICU.
Conclusions: A single chaplain-led seminar taught chaplains about ICU patients' psychoemotional distress, trained chaplains in assistive communication skills with nonvocal patients, and led to the use of communication-board-guided spiritual care in the ICU for up to one year later.
Objectives:To describe the feasibility of a chaplain-led spiritually focused life review interview and the development of a spiritual legacy document (SLD) for patients with advanced diseases and to describe changes in spiritual well-being (SWB), spiritual coping strategies (SC), and quality of life (QOL) after receiving the SLD.
Patients and Methods: In all, 130 patients and support person (SP) pairs were recruited from July 2012 to January 2019. Following enrollment, demographic information was gathered and baseline questionnaires were administered. Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy'Spiritual Well-Being Scale (FACIT-Sp-12) and a linear analog scale assessment (LASA) measured SWB. LASAs also measured QOL and emotional well-being (EWB). Positive Religious Coping Scale (RCOPE) measured SC. After completion of baseline forms, participants were interviewed (individually) by a chaplain. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and verified. Transcripts were edited and participants were given the opportunity to make adaptations. The participant-approved draft was then developed into a professionally printed SLD. Follow-up questionnaires were administered to assess change.
Results: Significant improvements from baseline to post-SLD follow-up were found for patients on the LASAs: SWB (average 7.7-8.3, P = .01), QOL (average 6.7-7.3, P = .03), EWB (average 6.9-7.5, P = .01), and on the positive RCOPE (average 1.8-2.0, P = .007). Effect sizes were approximately 0.25. Considering any improvement, 61.0% improved their positive RCOPE score, 46.6% improved EWB, and 39.7% improved SWB. No significant changes were found on the FACIT-Sp-12. No significant changes were found for SPs.
Conclusion: The results suggest that the primary participants who completed the study benefited by significantly increasing their QOL, SWB, EWB, and SC.
BACKGROUND: Gravely ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), and their families experience acute spiritual and existential needs and often require complex decisions about their care. Little is known about what constitutes chaplaincy care for patients or families in ICUs. Chaplains report that participation in medical decision-making is part of their role.
OBJECTIVE: To describe the spiritual care provided to patients and their families in the ICU.
METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study of spiritual care for patients and families in the medical ICUs (MICUs) at 4 medical centers over a 3-month period. Inclusion criteria were death in the MICU or discharge to palliative care or hospice. Measures included medical, treatment, and spiritual care information (number of visits, length of visit, chaplain categories, and type of spiritual care provided).
RESULTS: Of the 254 patients, 197 (78%) received a total of 485 spiritual care visits. Seventy-seven percent of visits included provision of emotional/spiritual support; only 15% included decision-making support such as family meetings or goals-of-care conversations. The proportion receiving spiritual care increased as patients neared death or discharge. Staff chaplains were involved in goals-of-care conversations to a greater extent than student or part-time chaplains (P < .05).
CONCLUSION: Spiritual care was provided to most patients and/or families at the end of life. Low chaplain involvement in decision-making in the MICU suggests opportunities to improve chaplains' contributions to ICU care.
Hope is an important topic in spiritual care in palliative care but the experiences of chaplains with hope have hardly been explored. The objective of this study was to explore Dutch chaplains' experiences with hope in palliative care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, which were thematically analyzed. The 10 chaplains had a variety of ordinations: Muslim, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Humanistic, or otherwise. Participants spoke about changes in patients' hope, often implying despair and surrender, in which patients' self-reflection was pivotal. Participants felt witnesses of hope, not by offering hope, but by acknowledging patients' hope and despair while being with their patients. They criticized other professionals who, not bearing witness to these experiences, tried to offer hope to patients. We conclude that chaplains may become witnesses of hope in times of despair, which includes the (ideological) critical function of spiritual care.
Spirituality and religion are at the core of Kenyan life. Pastoral leaders play a key role in shaping the individual and community's response to living with chronic and life-threatening illnesses. Involvement of religious leaders would therefore be critical in advocacy and education efforts in palliative care (PC) to address the needs of this population. The goal of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of religious leaders in Western Kenya regarding PC. This was a mixed-methods study with 86 religious leaders utilizing a 25-question survey followed by 5-person focus group discussions. Eighty-one percent of participants agreed that pastors should encourage members with life-threatening illnesses to talk about death and dying. However, almost a third of participants (29%) also agreed with the statement that full use of PC can hasten death. The pastors underscored challenges in end-of-life spiritual preparation as well as the importance of traditional beliefs in shaping cultural norms. Pastors supported the need for community-based PC education and additional training in PC for religious leaders. The results of this study confirm the dominant role of religion and spirituality in PC in Kenya. This dominant role in shaping PC is tied closely to Kenyan attitudes and norms surrounding death and dying.
La créativité, c'est cette capacité à percevoir ce qui est là, tapi entre les mots, sous les gestes, dans les interstices du quotidien. C'est la vie qui palpite derrière les apparences, ce sont ces désirs enfouis qui témoignent de la vie. La créativité, c'est permettre à toute cette vitalité de se dire et de se réaliser. Et c'est comme une invitation à sortir des cabines téléphoniques trop étroites dans lesquelles nous nous enfermons, souvent en toute inconscience.
OBJECTIVES: Hearing and visual sensory loss is prevalent among older adults and may impact the quality of healthcare they receive. Few studies have examined sensory loss and end-of-life (EOL) care quality. Our aim was to describe hearing and vision loss and their associations with the quality of EOL care and family perception of care in the last 30 days of life among a national sample of veteran decedents.
DESIGN: Retrospective medical record review and Bereaved Family Survey (BFS).
SETTING: Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers (N = 145).
PARTICIPANTS: Medical record review of all veterans who died in an inpatient VA Medical Center between October 2012 and September 2017 (N = 96 424). Survey results included 42 428 individuals.
MEASUREMENTS: Three indicators of high-quality EOL care were measured: palliative consultation in the last 90 days of life, death in a non-acute setting, and contact with a chaplain. The BFS reflects a global evaluation of quality of EOL care; pain and posttraumatic stress disorder management; and three subscales characterizing perceptions regarding communication, emotional and spiritual support, and information about death benefits in the last month of life.
RESULTS: In adjusted models, EOL care quality indicators and BFS outcomes for veterans with hearing loss were similar to those for veterans without hearing loss; however, we noted slightly lower scores for pain management and less satisfaction with communication. Veterans with vision loss were less likely to have received a palliative care consult or contact with a chaplain than those without vision loss. Although BFS respondents for veterans with vision loss were less likely than respondents for veterans without vision loss to report excellent overall care and satisfaction with emotional support, other outcomes did not differ.
CONCLUSION: In general, the VA is meeting the EOL care needs of veterans with hearing and vision loss through palliative care practices.
While shadowing is a relatively common practice in the education of many health professionals, it is not widely used in chaplaincy education. Findings from our qualitative study of 12 chaplains who participated in the Coleman Palliative Medicine Training Program suggest it may offer benefits for practicing chaplains. In interviews with seven fellows who shadowed more experienced palliative care (PC) chaplains and the five mentors who were shadowed at their work settings, participants reported opportunities for mutual learning, self-reflection, and collegiality. Fellows observed how members of a PC team collaborate and contribute equally to the care of patients. Mentors found shadowing was a rare opportunity to share their chaplaincy practice with colleagues. It helped them to appreciate different aspects of their work settings and to distinguish between PC and generalist chaplaincy. We discuss the challenges participants experienced while shadowing and offer recommendations for incorporating the practice more widely into chaplaincy education.
BACKGROUND: Research shows that religion and spirituality are important when persons cope with serious and life-threatening illness. Patients who receive good spiritual care report greater quality of life and better coping, and such support is strongly associated with greater well-being, hope, optimism, and reduction of despair at end of life. Despite these benefits, evidence shows that many patients and caregivers (P/C) refuse spiritual care when a hospice team offers it, possibly resulting in unnecessary suffering.
OBJECTIVE: To better understand what contributes to spiritual support acceptance in hospice care.
DESIGN: Quasi-experimental quantitative study.
SETTING/SUBJECTS: 200 patients admitted to hospice.
MEASUREMENTS: Participants were divided equally into intervention and control arms. Control participants received standard information about the availability of chaplain support and an offer for referral to chaplain services. Intervention participants received educational intervention that explained hospice chaplain services and the evidence-based benefits of spiritual support. The association of chaplain acceptance was measured with treatment group, patient age, disease, church affiliation and support, sex, bereavement risk, and place of residence.
RESULTS: Among intervention participants, 64 (64%) accepted spiritual support versus 52 (52%) of control participants. The intervention arm's acceptance rate was higher than the control arm after adjustment for other variables. The variables associated with acceptance were age, primary diagnosis, and place of residence.
CONCLUSIONS: This research suggests that educational intervention that explains spiritual care in hospice and its benefits contributes importantly to greater acceptance and allows P/C to gain the benefits of spiritual support during end-of-life care.
Palliative care (PC) is an interdisciplinary team approach to address patients’ physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs to improve quality of life among those who have faced a life-threatening illness. When PC services are provided in an outpatient setting, patients can stay in their homes and have all their physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs met by a comprehensive health care team to ensure a good quality of life. Because outpatient PC clinics offer a viable option for delivering PC in communities but are not prevalent in the US health care system and were rarely described in the literature, this article has described the development and evaluation of an outpatient PC clinic that was dedicated to integrating spiritual care. Specifically, this article describes (1) the factors prompting development of the clinic and its growth, (2) how a chaplain was integrated into the PC provision process, and (3) the processes and outcomes of evaluation of this clinic.
BACKGROUND: The prevalence of burnout and distress among palliative care professionals has received much attention since research suggests it negatively impacts the quality of care. Although limited, research suggests low levels of burnout or distress among healthcare chaplains; however, there has been no research among chaplains working in specific clinical contexts, including palliative care.
OBJECTIVE: This study explored the distress, self-care, and debriefing practices of chaplains working in palliative care.
METHOD: Exploratory, cross-sectional survey of professional chaplains. Electronic surveys were sent to members of four professional chaplaincy organizations between February and April 2015. Primary measures of interest included Professional Distress, Distress from Theodicy, Informal Self-care, Formal Self-care, and debriefing practices.Result: More than 60% of chaplains working in palliative care reported feeling worn out in the past 3 months because of their work as a helper; at least 33% practice Informal Self-care weekly. Bivariate analysis suggested significant associations between Informal Self-care and both Professional Distress and Distress from Theodicy. Multivariate analysis also identified that distress decreased as Informal and Formal Self-care increased. Significance of results: Chaplains working in palliative care appear moderately distressed, possibly more so than chaplains working in other clinical areas. These chaplains also use debriefing, with non-chaplain palliative colleagues, to process clinical experiences. Further research is needed about the role of religious or spiritual beliefs and practices in protecting against stress associated with care for people at the end of life.
Interdisciplinary palliative care teams provide critical, comprehensive end-of-life care, although the accumulated literature points toward barriers that impede their effectiveness. The current phenomenological qualitative study presents perceptions of chaplaincy interns (N = 24) and social work interns (N = 23) after a semester-long end-of-life clinical training experience with interdisciplinary palliative care teams. Analysis of the end of semester reflections resulted in seven themes, which are fairly consistent with the literature base. The described experiential learning and reflections in the current study are powerful and can inform how to prepare practitioners for teamwork and compassionate end-of-life care.
It is well accepted that attention to spiritual concerns is a core dimension of palliative care. It is similarly well accepted that chaplains are the spiritual care specialists who should address such concerns. However, what chaplains do when they provide care for patients and families is often poorly understood by their palliative care colleagues. Having a clear understanding of what chaplains do is important because it contributes to improved utilization of the spiritual care and other resources of the palliative care team and thereby to better care for patients and families. The aim of this study was to describe what palliative care physicians, nurses, and social workers understand about what chaplains do. Brief surveys were distributed to participants at 2 workshops for palliative care professionals in 2016. The survey was completed by 110 participants. The majority reported that they understood what chaplains do moderately well or very well. Thirty-three percent of the written comments about what chaplains do were very general; 25% were more specific. Only a small proportion of the participants were aware that chaplains provide care for the team, are involved in facilitating treatment decision-making, perform spiritual assessments, and bridge communication between the patient/family/team/community. Based on our survey, palliative care colleagues appear to have a broad understanding of what chaplains do but many may be unfamiliar with important contributions of chaplains to care for patients, families, and teams. These findings point to the need for ongoing education of palliative teams about what chaplains do in palliative care.
BACKGROUND: Pastoral care (also chaplaincy, spiritual care) assists people to find meaning, personal resources, and connection with self, others, and/or a higher power. Although essential in palliative care, there remains limited examination of what pastoral workers do. This study examined how pastoral workers use and consider the usefulness of art-based modalities.
METHODS: Qualitative research was used to examine the practice wisdom (tacit practice knowledge) of pastoral workers experienced in using visual arts and music in palliative care. Two focus groups were conducted. Thematic analysis was informed by grounded theory.
RESULTS: Six pastoral workers shared information. Three themes emerged. First, pastoral workers use arts as "another tool" to extend scope of practice by assisting patients and families to symbolically and more deeply contemplate what they find "sacred." Second, pastoral workers' art affinities inform their aims, assessments, and interactions. Third, pastoral workers perceive that art-based modalities can validate, enlighten, and transform patients and families through enabling them to "multisensorially" (through many senses) feel recognized, accepted, empowered, and/or close to God. Key elements involved in the work's transformative effects include enabling beauty, ritual, and the sense of "home" being heard, and legacy creation.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Pastoral workers interpret that offering art-based modalities in palliative care can help patients and families to symbolically deal with painful memories and experiences, creatively engage with that deemed significant, and/or encounter a sense of transcendence. Training in generalist art-based care needs to be offered in pastoral education.
This study examined clergy's use of 15 suicide prevention competencies. Four hundred ninety-eight U.S. Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant clergy responded to an online survey regarding their use of these competencies. Analysis of variance, backward stepwise regression, and principal components analysis were used to determine clergy group differences, predictors of use of competencies, and a parsimonious summary of competencies. Some respondents reported infrequent opportunities to develop these competencies. Respondents reported using general pastoral competencies more than suicide-specific competencies. Protestant clergy reported that their congregants watch over each other significantly more than Jewish clergy. Catholic and Jewish clergy reported significantly more competence in conducting suicide funerals than Protestant clergy. Contacts by suicidal people and number of hours of suicide-specific training predicted the use of more competencies. Competency components included postvention following a suicide, nonjudgmental attitudes, talking with a suicidal person, and pastoral care. Findings suggest that clergy may benefit from consultation and suicide-specific training.
Introduction: There exists scanty literature on the awareness of Nigerians towards palliative care. This study was conducted to determine the level of awareness of religious leaders and seminarians in Ibadan, Nigeria, on palliative care.
Methods: Data obtained from a cross-section of 302 religious leaders and seminarians in the metropolitan city of Ibadan, Nigeria, were used in this research. Study tool was a self-administered questionnaire which obtained information from the participants about their bio-data and knowledge of palliative care. Data analysis was done using the SPSS version 16 Software.
Results: The mean age of the respondents was 28.99 years, with 55.6% of them being within the age range of 21 to 30 years. The majority (94%) were males, 68.5% were single and 79.8% were seminarians. Only 31.8% have heard of palliative care before, 12.6% knew a health facility where palliative care is rendered in Nigeria, while 21.9% knew that chaplains are members of the palliative care team.
Conclusion: The level of awareness of palliative care among religious leaders and seminarians in Ibadan, Nigeria, is low. There exists the need to educate Nigerian religious leaders and seminarians on palliative care.
Community-based clergy are highly engaged in helping seriously ill patients address spiritual concerns at the end of life (EOL). While they desire EOL training, no data exist in guiding how to conceptualize a clergy-training program. The objective of this study was used to identify best practices in an EOL training program for community clergy. As part of the National Clergy Project on End-of-Life Care, the project conducted key informant interviews and focus groups with active clergy in five US states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas). A diverse purposive sample of 35 active clergy representing pre-identified racial, educational, theological, and denominational categories hypothesized to be associated with more intensive utilization of medical care at the EOL. We assessed suggested curriculum structure and content for clergy EOL training through interviews and focus groups for the purpose of qualitative analysis. Thematic analysis identified key themes around curriculum structure, curriculum content, and issues of tension. Curriculum structure included ideas for targeting clergy as well as lay congregational leaders and found that clergy were open to combining resources from both religious and health-based institutions. Curriculum content included clergy desires for educational topics such as increasing their medical literacy and reviewing pastoral counseling approaches. Finally, clergy identified challenging barriers to EOL training needing to be openly discussed, including difficulties in collaborating with medical teams, surrounding issues of trust, the role of miracles, and caution of prognostication. Future EOL training is desired and needed for community-based clergy. In partnering together, religious-medical training programs should consider curricula sensitive toward structure, desired content, and perceived clergy tensions.
AIM: The aim of this study was to examine the role and responsibilities of intensive care unit (ICU) nurses regarding the spiritual aspects of end-of-life care in the ICU, from the chaplains' perspectives.
METHOD: An explorative study including inductive thematic analysis was used. Two focus group interviews with in total eleven chaplains working in several Dutch ICUs were performed.
RESULTS: The focus group interviews resulted in five themes: (i) awareness of ICU nurses, (ii) communication, (iii) nursing interventions, (iv) multidisciplinary care and (v) education. In total, twenty recommendations were formulated.
CONCLUSIONS: This explorative study provides an overview of the perspectives of chaplains about the role of ICU nurses during end-of-life care, specified to spiritual care. Chaplains mentioned different roles, responsibilities and competences which are needed for ICU nurses to give spiritual care. These roles, responsibilities and competences included giving spiritual care to patients and families as standard care. Chaplains agreed that ICU nurses should start and maintain a dialogue with patient and families, but that it is also important to be aware of one's own spiritual background. However, education about spiritual care is needed to establish this. It could be recommended to educate ICU nurses during their ICU training or retraining about spiritual care and reflection.