Improving Spiritual Care in Hospitals in the Netherlands: What Do Health Care Chaplains Involved in an Action-Research Study Report?

Abstract

Health care chaplains participated in a multicenter trial to explore an implementation strategy for the Dutch multidisciplinary guideline for spiritual care. The intervention was concise spiritual care training for hospital staff of departments where patients in curative and palliative trajectories are treated. Data were collected in semistructured interviews with chaplains who acted as trainers, before and after the intervention. Results based on nine preintervention and eleven post-intervention interviews are presented. During preintervention interviews, chaplains describe the baseline situation of palliative care in Dutch hospitals, barriers, and opportunities for improving spiritual care. In the postintervention interviews, characteristics of the training, effects, and critical success factors were identified. Positive effects such as lowering barriers, increasing health care professionals' competences, and increasing health care chaplains' profile are possible. Chaplain-led, multidisciplinary spiritual care training is a feasible method to start implementation of spiritual care in hospitals, as described in the multidisciplinary guideline.

Spiritual Care in Palliative Care: A Systematic Review of the Recent European Literature

“…Fifty-three articles were included [33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85]. Seventeen were quantitative studies [33,34,36,37,40,43,50,51,54,61,66,67,69,71,74,81,82], of which the majority ( n = 11) were survey studies, 27 qualitative studies […”

“…Seventeen were quantitative studies [33,34,36,37,40,43,50,51,54,61,66,67,69,71,74,81,82], of which the majority ( n = 11) were survey studies, 27 qualitative studies [38,39,41,42,44,45,46,48,49,53,55,56,57,58,59,60,63,64,68,73,76,78,79,80,83,84,85], most of which were interview studies ( n = 13), and nine mixed-methods studies [35,47,52,62,65,70,72,75,77]. Most studies were conducted in Western Europe ( n = 37), especially in the UK ( n = 10), Germany ( n = 8), and the Netherlands ( n = 13).…”

“…A qualitative study found relevant factors for implementing spiritual care in (palliative) care, which included research based chaplaincy, the context of palliative care in hospitals, and the use of a diagnostic tool. Within the organizational structure it was necessary to have a clear mandate and ownership of spiritual care and good relationships with physicians and managers [83]. …”

Hospitalized Patients’ Perspectives on Spiritual Assessment: A Mixed Methods Study

“…McCormick and Hildebrand (2015) underline the importance of chaplains in the hospital setting where patients face deeply personal life challenges. Additionally, researchers van de Geer et al (2018) report on the value of including chaplains in the health care team approach to holistic patient care, which they see as best practice. Increasing research evidence shows that collaboration between various health care disciplines provides optimal patient-centered holistic care, and chaplains are an important part of the patient care team.…”

Spiritual quality of life in family carers of patients with advanced cancer—a cross-sectional study

“…Being experts on spirituality, spiritual care, and existential conversations [7], the (religious and non-religious) representatives of the chaplaincy staffs should engage in spiritual QoL research, and educate other health care professionals in spiritual care. Chaplaincy-led, multidisciplinary training in spiritual care has been found to be feasible in hospitals [43]. The present study was performed in two similar rural parts of Mid-Norway where no carers had cultural background other than Norwegian, reducing the generalizability of the results.…”