Research Priorities for Healthcare Chaplaincy: Views of U.S. Chaplains

Abstract

Chaplains in the United States and around the world appear to support an evidence-based practice approach to chaplaincy. While there continues to be strong growth in spiritual care research, several spiritual care researchers have stressed the need for a research agenda for chaplaincy. This study investigated the research priorities of chaplains who completed a survey distributed at four chaplaincy conferences in 2016. A total of 193 chaplains responded, resulting in 499 comments. When compared to the findings of existing literature regarding research priorities for chaplaincy, chaplain's views of research priorities appear to be very consistent with views of chaplaincy leaders. Both prioritize research on outcomes of spiritual care, the development and testing of the effectiveness of interventions, the development and evaluation of assessment and screening tools and research about key subgroups of patients. The chaplains in the survey however added to the agenda research regarding competencies, education, and certification and research regarding the chaplain and the team.

Nursing research priorities based on CINAHL database: A scoping review

“…More inquiry is necessary for the fields of midwifery and women's health (Bosco, Williams, Graham, Malagas, & Hauck, ; Correa‐de‐Araujo, ; Iribarren et al, ; Monterosso et al, ) and sexual health (Rew, Thurman, & McDonald, ). Veteran nursing care (De Jong, ; Struwe et al, ) and chaplaincy care (Damen, Delaney, & Fitchett, ) are also phenomena where research is lacking from the nursing point of view. Furthermore, public health, occupational health and environmental health are considered as fields with a limited number of nursing studies available (Edwards, Porr, & Rieck Buckley, ; Issel, Bekemeier, & Kneipp, ; McCauley, ; Rehfuess et al, ).…”

“…Veteran nursing care (De Jong, 2015;Struwe et al, 2018) and chaplaincy care (Damen, Delaney, & Fitchett, 2018) are also phenomena where research is lacking from the nursing point of view.…”

Evidence-Based Spiritual Care Practice in the Canadian Context: Twenty Years Later

“…Subjecting religious and spiritual approaches to care to empirical testing enables outcomes to be tested, involves collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team, and emphasizes the importance of spiritual care in promoting patients' health and well-being (Fitchett et al, 2014;Richards & Worthington, 2010). For some, EBSCP involves creating and utilizing empirically verified spiritual care assessment tools and measurements (Damen, Delaney, & Fitchett, 2018;Fitchett et al, 2014).…”

Toward a clinical model for patient spiritual journeys in supportive and palliative care: Testing a concept of human spirituality and associated recursive states

“…While growth in spiritual care research continues (Damen et al, 2018), healthcare chaplaincy research has felt the need for a common model in which clinical and chaplaincy researchers could locate their hypotheses. In 2015, the Chaplaincy Research Consortium (CRC) published a consensus model for spheres of spiritual experience aligned with domains outlined in models of palliative care and human suffering (Emanuel et al, 2015a).…”