Pub Date : 2024-07-01Epub Date: 2023-10-19DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2023.2270395
Stephanie L Harris, Amanda K Bailey
Hospital-based chaplains provide crucial spiritual and emotional care to patients, families, and staff during times of intense life changes and crises. Chaplains are regularly exposed to suffering and their work may result in personal mental and emotional health challenges. To understand chaplains' perceptions of the impact of their work and methods to cope, a secondary analysis of a mixed-methods study on chaplain well-being was undertaken. Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine hospital-based chaplains and data were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results revealed that participants perceive their work as offering both trials and rewards, and their efforts to cope with trials include interpersonal support, intrapersonal resources, and spiritual resilience. Personal insights into chaplains' experiences may help inform organizational interventions to support these essential members of the care team.
{"title":"Work-related perceptions and coping strategies of acute care chaplains: a qualitative analysis.","authors":"Stephanie L Harris, Amanda K Bailey","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2270395","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2270395","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hospital-based chaplains provide crucial spiritual and emotional care to patients, families, and staff during times of intense life changes and crises. Chaplains are regularly exposed to suffering and their work may result in personal mental and emotional health challenges. To understand chaplains' perceptions of the impact of their work and methods to cope, a secondary analysis of a mixed-methods study on chaplain well-being was undertaken. Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine hospital-based chaplains and data were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results revealed that participants perceive their work as offering both trials and rewards, and their efforts to cope with trials include interpersonal support, intrapersonal resources, and spiritual resilience. Personal insights into chaplains' experiences may help inform organizational interventions to support these essential members of the care team.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"167-185"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49683447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01Epub Date: 2023-01-27DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2023.2169535
Jolanda van Dijke, Joachim Duyndam, Inge van Nistelrooij, Pien Bos
Empathy has been highlighted as a key concept in chaplaincy care, but its meaning has hardly been explored in depth within this field. This study aims to help develop stronger conceptual clarity by investigating humanist chaplains' conceptualizations of empathy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twenty humanist chaplains working in health care, military, and prisons. A qualitative design was employed to clarify which components and features constitute empathy in humanist chaplaincy care. Empathy emerges as a multidimensional concept that is "fundamentally human." Chaplains distinguish between true and pseudo empathy based on different features including authenticity and concern. This article provides a conceptual model that combines the different components and features of empathy in humanist chaplaincy care and the relationship between them in light of empathy's humanizing quality. It may be used for educational purposes and could function as a conceptual framework for future research efforts.
{"title":"\"Genuine and fundamentally human\": a qualitative study into Dutch humanist chaplains' conceptualizations of empathy.","authors":"Jolanda van Dijke, Joachim Duyndam, Inge van Nistelrooij, Pien Bos","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2169535","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2169535","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Empathy has been highlighted as a key concept in chaplaincy care, but its meaning has hardly been explored in depth within this field. This study aims to help develop stronger conceptual clarity by investigating humanist chaplains' conceptualizations of empathy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twenty humanist chaplains working in health care, military, and prisons. A qualitative design was employed to clarify which components and features constitute empathy in humanist chaplaincy care. Empathy emerges as a multidimensional concept that is \"fundamentally human.\" Chaplains distinguish between true and pseudo empathy based on different features including authenticity and concern. This article provides a conceptual model that combines the different components and features of empathy in humanist chaplaincy care and the relationship between them in light of empathy's humanizing quality. It may be used for educational purposes and could function as a conceptual framework for future research efforts.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"89-106"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10678121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01Epub Date: 2022-12-14DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2022.2154108
Robert Klitzman, Stephanie Sinnappan, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Jay Al-Hashimi, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli
Many questions arise concerning how and why chaplains enter the field. Interviews of ∼1 one hour each were conducted with 23 U.S. chaplains. Chaplains vary widely in professional and personal backgrounds and experiences, which they often draw on in their work. Personal experiences can lead them to enter the field, enhance their empathy and strengthen their commitment. They have frequently faced significant trauma (e.g., parent's death) or helped family and/or friends with end-of-life challenges. Chaplains often entered other fields first (e.g., clergy, business or healthcare), but they often had incomplete or incorrect prior knowledge about the field. Prior experiences can also affect their work (e.g., in recognizing the power of silence). A sense of personal "calling" frequently leads chaplains to find their work deeply rewarding and sustaining. These data, the first to explore how and why chaplains enter the field, have critical implications for future practice, education and research.
{"title":"Becoming chaplains: How and why chaplains enter the field, factors involved and implications.","authors":"Robert Klitzman, Stephanie Sinnappan, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Jay Al-Hashimi, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2154108","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2154108","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many questions arise concerning how and why chaplains enter the field. Interviews of ∼1 one hour each were conducted with 23 U.S. chaplains. Chaplains vary widely in professional and personal backgrounds and experiences, which they often draw on in their work. Personal experiences can lead them to enter the field, enhance their empathy and strengthen their commitment. They have frequently faced significant trauma (e.g., parent's death) or helped family and/or friends with end-of-life challenges. Chaplains often entered other fields first (e.g., clergy, business or healthcare), but they often had incomplete or incorrect prior knowledge about the field. Prior experiences can also affect their work (e.g., in recognizing the power of silence). A sense of personal \"calling\" frequently leads chaplains to find their work deeply rewarding and sustaining. These data, the first to explore how and why chaplains enter the field, have critical implications for future practice, education and research.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"75-88"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10705426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01Epub Date: 2023-05-13DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2023.2210029
Robert Klitzman, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli, Stephanie Sinnappan, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Jay Al-Hashimi
Recent research has described broad types of healthcare chaplains' activities, but many questions remain about how these professionals perform these tasks, whether variations occur, and if so, in what ways. Twenty-three chaplains were interviewed in-depth. Chaplains described engaging in highly dynamic processes, involving both verbal and non-verbal interactions. They face challenges and vary in ways of starting interactions, using verbal and non-verbal cues, and communicating through physical appearance. In these processes, when entering patients' rooms, they seek to "read the room," follow patients' leads, look for cues, match the energy/mood in the room, and adjust their body language appropriately, while maintaining open-ended stances. They face choices of what, if anything, to communicate through clothing (e.g., wearing clerical collars or crosses) and can confront additional challenges with members of groups different than their own, at times requiring further sensitivity. These data, the first to examine challenges chaplains confront entering patients' rooms and engaging in non-verbal communication, can enhance understandings of these issues, and help chaplains and other healthcare professionals provide more sensitive and astute context-based care. These findings thus have critical implications for education, practice, and research concerning chaplains and other providers.
{"title":"\"Reading\" the room: healthcare chaplains' challenges, insights and variations in entering rooms and engaging with patients and families.","authors":"Robert Klitzman, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli, Stephanie Sinnappan, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Jay Al-Hashimi","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2210029","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2210029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recent research has described broad types of healthcare chaplains' activities, but many questions remain about <i>how</i> these professionals perform these tasks, whether variations occur, and if so, in what ways. Twenty-three chaplains were interviewed in-depth. Chaplains described engaging in highly dynamic processes, involving both verbal and non-verbal interactions. They face challenges and vary in ways of starting interactions, using verbal and non-verbal cues, and communicating through physical appearance. In these processes, when entering patients' rooms, they seek to \"read the room,\" follow patients' leads, look for cues, match the energy/mood in the room, and adjust their body language appropriately, while maintaining open-ended stances. They face choices of what, if anything, to communicate through clothing (e.g., wearing clerical collars or crosses) and can confront additional challenges with members of groups different than their own, at times requiring further sensitivity. These data, the first to examine challenges chaplains confront entering patients' rooms and engaging in non-verbal communication, can enhance understandings of these issues, and help chaplains and other healthcare professionals provide more sensitive and astute context-based care. These findings thus have critical implications for education, practice, and research concerning chaplains and other providers.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"122-136"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9824006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01Epub Date: 2023-05-10DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2023.2210026
Gaby Jacobs, Carmen Schuhmann, Iris Wierstra
Western society is increasingly a spiritual society, but not so much a society that draws on clearly delineated religious or worldview pillars anymore. Within healthcare, there's a growing attention to the spiritual dimension of health and the collaborative spiritual care that is needed for person-centered care. This changing religious/worldview and healthcare landscape is influencing healthcare chaplaincy. In this case study in-depth interviews were conducted with a chaplaincy team within a large healthcare organization in The Netherlands. Dialogical Self Theory was used as the theoretical framework in the narrative analysis of these stories. This provided insights into how these chaplains negotiate their professional identity within a changing healthcare landscape. It is concluded that there are multiple and often contradictory and conflicting positions within and between chaplains and that it is a challenge for healthcare chaplains to integrate the "old" and "new" representations of chaplaincy.
{"title":"Healthcare chaplains' conflicting and ambivalent positions regarding meaning in life and worldview.","authors":"Gaby Jacobs, Carmen Schuhmann, Iris Wierstra","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2210026","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2210026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Western society is increasingly a spiritual society, but not so much a society that draws on clearly delineated religious or worldview pillars anymore. Within healthcare, there's a growing attention to the spiritual dimension of health and the collaborative spiritual care that is needed for person-centered care. This changing religious/worldview and healthcare landscape is influencing healthcare chaplaincy. In this case study in-depth interviews were conducted with a chaplaincy team within a large healthcare organization in The Netherlands. Dialogical Self Theory was used as the theoretical framework in the narrative analysis of these stories. This provided insights into how these chaplains negotiate their professional identity within a changing healthcare landscape. It is concluded that there are multiple and often contradictory and conflicting positions within and between chaplains and that it is a challenge for healthcare chaplains to integrate the \"old\" and \"new\" representations of chaplaincy.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"107-121"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9440642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01Epub Date: 2023-07-24DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2023.2239109
Amy Lawton, Wendy Cadge, Jessica Hamar Martinez
How does the American public understand the term chaplain? What fraction interact with chaplains and in what settings? What is the content of those interactions and do care recipients find them valuable? We answer these questions with data from a nationally representative survey (N = 1096) conducted in March 2022 and interviews with a subset (N = 50) of survey recipients who interacted with chaplains. We find that people in the United States do not have a consistent understanding of the term chaplain. Based on our definition, at least 18% of Americans have interacted with a chaplain. Among those who interacted with a chaplain as defined in the survey, the majority did so through healthcare organizations. Care recipients include people who were ill and their visitors/caregivers. The most common types of support received were prayer, listening and comfort. Overall, survey respondents found chaplains to be moderately or very valuable.
{"title":"How does the American public interact with chaplains? Evidence from a national survey.","authors":"Amy Lawton, Wendy Cadge, Jessica Hamar Martinez","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2239109","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2023.2239109","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How does the American public understand the term chaplain? What fraction interact with chaplains and in what settings? What is the content of those interactions and do care recipients find them valuable? We answer these questions with data from a nationally representative survey (<i>N</i> = 1096) conducted in March 2022 and interviews with a subset (<i>N</i> = 50) of survey recipients who interacted with chaplains. We find that people in the United States do not have a consistent understanding of the term chaplain. Based on our definition, at least 18% of Americans have interacted with a chaplain. Among those who interacted with a chaplain as defined in the survey, the majority did so through healthcare organizations. Care recipients include people who were ill and their visitors/caregivers. The most common types of support received were prayer, listening and comfort. Overall, survey respondents found chaplains to be moderately or very valuable.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"137-151"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9858537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01Epub Date: 2022-12-15DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2022.2154107
Alexander Tartaglia, Kelsey B White, Tyler Corson, Ann Charlescraft, Tricia Johnson, Elizabeth Jackson-Jordan, George Fitchett
The aim of this study was to describe the range of spiritual care activities in support of clinical colleagues at a subset of U.S. hospitals. A descriptive cross-sectional design using a 76-item Zoom/telephone guided survey containing a subset of staff care questions was employed. Data were provided by directors/managers responsible for spiritual care services at the 2020-2021 U.S. News & World Report top hospitals. Results identified staff support as an important chaplaincy function at both organizational and spiritual care department levels. Staff chaplains at over half of the hospitals spend an estimated 10-30% of their time on staff care, with chaplains in five hospitals spending greater than 30%. The most frequently reported activities were religiously associated, such as blessings and rituals for hospital events. Additionally, chaplains actively support staff during critical events such as patient deaths and through organizational protocols such as code lavender and critical incident debriefings. Chaplain support for staff most commonly grew out of personal relationships or referrals from clinical managers. Future research opportunities in this area include systematic data collection for chaplains' specific staff support activities as well as efforts to investigate the impact of those activities on patient experience.
{"title":"Supporting staff: The role of health care chaplains.","authors":"Alexander Tartaglia, Kelsey B White, Tyler Corson, Ann Charlescraft, Tricia Johnson, Elizabeth Jackson-Jordan, George Fitchett","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2154107","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2154107","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The aim of this study was to describe the range of spiritual care activities in support of clinical colleagues at a subset of U.S. hospitals. A descriptive cross-sectional design using a 76-item Zoom/telephone guided survey containing a subset of staff care questions was employed. Data were provided by directors/managers responsible for spiritual care services at the 2020-2021 <i>U.S. News & World Report</i> top hospitals. Results identified staff support as an important chaplaincy function at both organizational and spiritual care department levels. Staff chaplains at over half of the hospitals spend an estimated 10-30% of their time on staff care, with chaplains in five hospitals spending greater than 30%. The most frequently reported activities were religiously associated, such as blessings and rituals for hospital events. Additionally, chaplains actively support staff during critical events such as patient deaths and through organizational protocols such as code lavender and critical incident debriefings. Chaplain support for staff most commonly grew out of personal relationships or referrals from clinical managers. Future research opportunities in this area include systematic data collection for chaplains' specific staff support activities as well as efforts to investigate the impact of those activities on patient experience.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"60-73"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10344885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01Epub Date: 2022-10-26DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2022.2136466
Melissa A Smigelsky, Justin L Maynard, C Graham Ford, Ryan Parker, Jennifer H Wortmann, Keith G Meador, Anna Fink, Jason A Nieuwsma
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has prioritized improving the identification of veterans at risk for suicide and ensuring adequate staffing of personnel to assist veterans in need. It is imperative that suicide prevention efforts make use of the full range of available resources, including diverse professionals with distinctive skillsets. Chaplains are engaged in suicide prevention efforts in VA, but the literature lacks examples of chaplain-involved suicide prevention efforts that clearly describe how chaplains are engaged, the training and/or qualifications chaplains possess in the area of suicide prevention, and the reach and impact of such efforts. The purpose of this report is to describe the development and implementation of a novel, innovative, and ongoing chaplain-led suicide prevention outreach initiative for veterans at high risk for suicide. Results indicated the program was feasible and supported at the systems level, and chaplains were able to collaboratively sustain outreach efforts over the course of a year. Chaplain suicide prevention outreach was found to be acceptable to veterans, who overwhelmingly indicated openness to and appreciation for outreach. Chaplains can address the spiritual crisis underlying suicidality, bolster spiritual protective factors, and are a part of holistic care. Considerations for implementation and future investigation are discussed.
{"title":"Increasing chaplain support for veterans at high risk for suicide through targeted outreach: A quality improvement initiative.","authors":"Melissa A Smigelsky, Justin L Maynard, C Graham Ford, Ryan Parker, Jennifer H Wortmann, Keith G Meador, Anna Fink, Jason A Nieuwsma","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2136466","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2136466","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has prioritized improving the identification of veterans at risk for suicide and ensuring adequate staffing of personnel to assist veterans in need. It is imperative that suicide prevention efforts make use of the full range of available resources, including diverse professionals with distinctive skillsets. Chaplains are engaged in suicide prevention efforts in VA, but the literature lacks examples of chaplain-involved suicide prevention efforts that clearly describe how chaplains are engaged, the training and/or qualifications chaplains possess in the area of suicide prevention, and the reach and impact of such efforts. The purpose of this report is to describe the development and implementation of a novel, innovative, and ongoing chaplain-led suicide prevention outreach initiative for veterans at high risk for suicide. Results indicated the program was feasible and supported at the systems level, and chaplains were able to collaboratively sustain outreach efforts over the course of a year. Chaplain suicide prevention outreach was found to be acceptable to veterans, who overwhelmingly indicated openness to and appreciation for outreach. Chaplains can address the spiritual crisis underlying suicidality, bolster spiritual protective factors, and are a part of holistic care. Considerations for implementation and future investigation are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":"1 1","pages":"33-45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46552793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01Epub Date: 2022-11-26DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2022.2150026
Robert Klitzman, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Stephanie Sinnappan, Jay Al-Hashimi
Hospital chaplains perform important activities, but critical questions arise about the challenges they may face in working with patients, and how these professionals respond. Thirty-three telephone interviews of approximately 1 hour and were conducted with 21 board-certified chaplains. When asked about their biggest challenges and most rewarding interactions, several chaplains described rejections by patients or families. Patients and families at times rejected chaplains, and did so for six broad types of reasons - not wanting to discuss the disease due to conflicted feelings, including anger or frustration at the patient, the cosmos or God; or wanting to minimize it; wanting a chaplain of their own faith; or of a particular gender or other characteristic; being atheist or wary of religion; or misunderstanding what chaplains do. Patients at times also disagreed with family members about whether to reject a chaplain. Chaplains responded variously: feeling transitory hurt (which generally decreases with experience); respecting patients' autonomy and leaving; exploring reasons for rejection; and revisiting later and often then making helpful connections. These data have important implications for future practice, education and research regarding chaplains and other providers - suggesting, for example, how patients' families and the public might benefit from increased understanding about the field.
{"title":"When and why patients and families reject chaplains: challenges, strategies and solutions.","authors":"Robert Klitzman, Gabrielle Di Sapia Natarelli, Elizaveta Garbuzova, Stephanie Sinnappan, Jay Al-Hashimi","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2150026","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2150026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hospital chaplains perform important activities, but critical questions arise about the challenges they may face in working with patients, and how these professionals respond. Thirty-three telephone interviews of approximately 1 hour and were conducted with 21 board-certified chaplains. When asked about their biggest challenges and most rewarding interactions, several chaplains described rejections by patients or families. Patients and families at times rejected chaplains, and did so for six broad types of reasons - not wanting to discuss the disease due to conflicted feelings, including anger or frustration at the patient, the cosmos or God; or wanting to minimize it; wanting a chaplain of their own faith; or of a particular gender or other characteristic; being atheist or wary of religion; or misunderstanding what chaplains do. Patients at times also disagreed with family members about whether to reject a chaplain. Chaplains responded variously: feeling transitory hurt (which generally decreases with experience); respecting patients' autonomy and leaving; exploring reasons for rejection; and revisiting later and often then making helpful connections. These data have important implications for future practice, education and research regarding chaplains and other providers - suggesting, for example, how patients' families and the public might benefit from increased understanding about the field.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"46-59"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10379679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01Epub Date: 2022-07-19DOI: 10.1080/08854726.2022.2097781
Betty R Ferrell, Haley Buller, Judith A Paice, Myra Glajchen, Trace Haythorn
Effective communication is essential for palliative care clinicians to provide quality spiritual care to cancer patients. Despite attention to spiritual needs having the potential to positively impact a patient's quality of life, clinicians continue to report a lack of confidence in addressing a patient's spiritual distress. This article addresses the development of a 3-day train-the-trainer communication cancer education program (ICC: Interprofessional Communication Curriculum) organized by the 8 domains of the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care. The main objectives of ICC are to train adult oncology clinicians (nurses, social workers, and chaplains) in communication skills across all aspects of palliative care and to help prepare them to provide communication skills training to their colleagues at their home institutions. ICC participants attend in dyads consisting of differing disciplines and create 3 goals for implementing institutional change. To date, 126 participants (69 teams) have attended an ICC training. Pre-course survey results identified spiritual care as participants' least effective area of communication. Immediate post-course evaluation data revealed the spiritual care module and its subsequent lab session as the most useful sessions to participant's practice. Data from the 6-and-12-months post-course follow-up revealed participant's quality improvement projects focused heavily on improving spiritual care.
{"title":"Interprofessional communication training to address spiritual aspects of cancer care.","authors":"Betty R Ferrell, Haley Buller, Judith A Paice, Myra Glajchen, Trace Haythorn","doi":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2097781","DOIUrl":"10.1080/08854726.2022.2097781","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Effective communication is essential for palliative care clinicians to provide quality spiritual care to cancer patients. Despite attention to spiritual needs having the potential to positively impact a patient's quality of life, clinicians continue to report a lack of confidence in addressing a patient's spiritual distress. This article addresses the development of a 3-day train-the-trainer communication cancer education program (ICC: Interprofessional Communication Curriculum) organized by the 8 domains of the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care. The main objectives of ICC are to train adult oncology clinicians (nurses, social workers, and chaplains) in communication skills across all aspects of palliative care and to help prepare them to provide communication skills training to their colleagues at their home institutions. ICC participants attend in dyads consisting of differing disciplines and create 3 goals for implementing institutional change. To date, 126 participants (69 teams) have attended an ICC training. Pre-course survey results identified spiritual care as participants' least effective area of communication. Immediate post-course evaluation data revealed the spiritual care module and its subsequent lab session as the most useful sessions to participant's practice. Data from the 6-and-12-months post-course follow-up revealed participant's quality improvement projects focused heavily on improving spiritual care.</p>","PeriodicalId":45330,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy","volume":" ","pages":"399-411"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9850499/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10550964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}