Recognizing and Meeting the Spiritual Needs of Hospital Inpatients
Issued Date: 25 Sep 2013
Abstract
The aim of this project is to improve understanding of the spiritual needs of inpatients and to establish how well these are recognized and met. Interviews were carried out with 13 patients, who had seen a chaplain, to ascertain their spiritual needs. Nursing staff were interviewed about their perception of patients’ spiritual needs, and the referring chaplain’s written account of the intervention was obtained. The study examined and found that there was variable agreement between patients’ and nurses’ ratings of spiritual needs, which may suggest nurses do not always recognize the need for specialist spiritual care referral. Conversely there was substantial agreement between patient and chaplain reported outcomes of chaplaincy intervention (κ=0.77; 95% CI, 0.495 – 1.047), suggesting that chaplains met personally relevant spiritual needs. The results of this research suggest that spiritual needs are important to patients, regardless of religious affiliation, and that chaplains meet these needs. However, staff are not necessarily good at recognizing the need for specialist referral.
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DOI: 10.1558/hscc.v1i1.35
References
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Speck, P., I. Higginson and J. Addington-Hall (2004) “Spiritual Needs in Health Care”. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed) 329(7458): 123–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7458.123
Puchalski, C. (2001) “The Role of Spirituality in Health Care”. BUMC Proceedings 14(4): 352–57.
Williams, E. (2008) “A Spiritual Agenda for Doctors?” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 11(1): 2–6.
Cook, C., A. Powell and A. Sims (2009) Spirituality and Psychiatry. London: RCPsych Publications.
Culliford, L. (2002) “Spirituality and Clinical Care”. BMJ (December 21) 325(7378): 1434–35.
Flannelly, K., et al. (2006) “The Relative Prevalence of Various Spiritual Needs”. Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 9(2): 25–31.
Galek, K., et al. (2005) “Assessing a Patient's Spiritual Needs: a Comprehensive Instrument”. Holistic Nursing Practice (March-April) 19(2): 62–69.
Gordon, T., E. Kelly and D. Mitchell (2011) Spiritual Care for Health Professionals. London: Routledge.
Grant, E. et al. (2004) “Spiritual Issues and Needs: Perspectives from Patients with Advanced Cancer and Nonmalignant Disease. A Qualitative Study”. Palliative Support Care 2(4): 371–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1478951504040490
Grant, L., Murray S.A., Sheikh A., 2010. Spiritual Dimensions of Dying in Pluralist Societies. BMJ, 341: c4859. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c4859
Grimes, D. A., and Kenneth F. Schulz (2002) “Bias and Causal Associations in Observational Research”. Lancet 359: 248–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(02)07451-2
Handzo, G., and H. G. Koenig (2004) “Spiritual Care: Whose Job Is It Anyway?” Southern Medical Journal (December) 97(12): 1242–44.
Hay, D., and K. Hunt (2000) Understanding the Spirituality of People Who Don't Go To Church. Nottingham: University of Nottingham.
Kinzbrunner, B. (2010) “The Physician’s Role in Spiritual Care”. In B. Kinzbrunner and J. Policzer, End of Life Care: A Practical Guide, 384–86. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Koenig, H., M. McCullough and D. Larson (2001) Handbook of Religion and Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118667.001.0001
Landis, J. R., and G. G. Koch (1977) “The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data”. Biometrics 33(1): 159–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2529310
McGraw, K. O., and S. P. Wong (1996) “Forming Inferences About Some Intraclass Correlation Coefficients”. Psychological Methods 1(1): 30–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.1.1.30
NHS Lothian (2011) Spiritual Care: General Information. [online] Available at: http://www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/Services/A-Z/SpiritualCare/GeneralInformation/Pages/default.aspx (accessed 19 May 2012).
NICE (2004) Improving Supportive and Palliative Care for Adults with Cancer. [online] Available at: www.nice.org.uk/guidance/index.jsp?action=download&r=true&o=28800 (accessed 5 September 2012).
Paterson, R., et al. (2006) “Prediction of In-hospital Mortality and Length of Stay Using an Early Warning Scoring System: Clinical Audit”. Clinical Medicine 6(3): 281–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.6-3-281
Petrie, A., and C. Sabin (2009) Medical Statistics at a Glance. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Scottish Government (2010) Scottish IMD 2009 Data. [online] Available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD (accessed 19 May 2012).
Scottish Patient Survey [online]. Available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/09/28112720/0 (accessed 5 May 2012).
Speck, P., I. Higginson and J. Addington-Hall (2004) “Spiritual Needs in Health Care”. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed) 329(7458): 123–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7458.123
Puchalski, C. (2001) “The Role of Spirituality in Health Care”. BUMC Proceedings 14(4): 352–57.
Williams, E. (2008) “A Spiritual Agenda for Doctors?” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 11(1): 2–6.
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