Spiritual care in palliative medicine: interactive, virtual workshop for specialists.

Abstract

Background: Spiritual pain and distress are commonly unrecognised among patients receiving palliative care, yet engaging with a person's spirituality can allow healing to occur even amid suffering. Palliative care clinicians lack training in assessing and managing spiritual distress among patients.

Objectives: Development of a virtually delivered spirituality workshop to improve clinicians' understanding of their own spirituality and confidence in addressing the spiritual dimension of patients' experience.

Method: 32 palliative care clinicians across Australia and New Zealand attended four 1.5-hour sessions across consecutive weeks, with additional pre-session and post-session written and audiovisual content. Participants completed a pre-post evaluation survey, rating their confidence in knowledge and skills relating to the provision of spiritual care.

Results: All participants completed at least three of the four workshop sessions, and 19 responded to the pre-post evaluation survey. Confidence ratings across all skills significantly improved following the workshop. Most participants reported improved confidence in taking a spiritual history, assessing patients for spiritual issues and managing patients experiencing spiritual pain. All reported that they would recommend the workshop to a colleague, and most (11/19) felt virtual delivery of the workshop was appropriate for the content and activities.

Conclusions: Spirituality training can be safely and effectively delivered through a virtual workshop for palliative care clinicians. The training was highly valued and deepened participants' understanding of their own spirituality. Further exploration of how virtual and face-to-face learning can be combined may identify a flexible and engaging experience for learners.