Assessing Spiritual Well-Being in Residential Aged Care: An Exploratory Review

An Online Survey of Australian Medical Students' Perspectives on Spiritual History Taking and Spiritual Care

It is reported that little spiritual care communication skills training occurs in Australian medical schools. This survey explored the experience of final year students in this domain in order to inform the construction of a new curriculum. Medical students in their final year at four Australian medical schools were invited to participate in an online survey, which included questions about demographic details, exposure to spiritual history taking, perceived learning needs, and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-being 12 item Non-Illness score. Two-hundred and sixty students from a cohort of 766 responded (34%). One in nine students had witnessed spiritual history taking, and one in ten students had been given the opportunity to do so. Barriers and enablers were identified. Two-thirds of the students reported no recollection of any training in spiritual care. When it did occur, it was limited in scope and structure. Final year medical students recognise that spiritual care deserves a place in the modern, broad-based medical school curriculum. This supports the argument for inclusion of spiritual care training as part of all medical student curricula in Australia.

The Meaning and Role of Spirituality for Older Adults: A Qualitative Study

This study is designed to identify the meaning and effects perceived by a person concerning religion and spirituality as that person grows old. A total of nineteen adults aged 65-88, five of whom were male and fourteen of whom were female, participated in semistructured interviews. As per the results of the thematic analysis, four main themes emerged: the meaning of spirituality, spiritual practices, the effect of spirituality and the meaning of growing old for the person. The results indicate that the participants view the entrance into old-age adulthood as a process that enhances interactions with others and intensifies help and compassion. The results also indicate that spirituality may play a crucial role in guiding older adults' lives and can help them clarify the meaning of their lives and cope with negative circumstances. Supporting older adults spiritually could also assist them to have positive emotions and help them to cope with stress. The organization of regular education programs to raise health professionals' awareness of spiritual needs is recommended.

Spiritual Needs Assessment in Post-Secular Contexts: An Integrative Review of Questionnaires

Research across healthcare contexts has shown that, if provided appropriately, spiritual care can be of significant benefit to patients. It can be challenging, however, to incorporate spiritual care in daily practice, not least in post-secular, culturally entwined, and pluralist contexts. The aim of this integrative review was to locate, evaluate and discuss spiritual-needs questionnaires from the post-secular perspective in relation to their applicability in secular healthcare. Eleven questionnaires were evaluated and discussed with a focus on religious/spiritual (RS) wording, local culturally entwined and pluralist contexts, and on whether a consensual understanding between patient and healthcare professional could be expected through RS wording. By highlighting some factors involved in implementing a spiritual-needs questionnaire in diverse cultural and vernacular contexts, this article can assist by providing a general guideline. This article offers an approach to the international exchange and implementation of knowledge, experiences, and best practice in relation to the use of spiritual needs-assessment questionnaires in post-secular contexts.

Valuing the Spiritual

Identifying reforms that minimize US healthcare costs is imperative. This commentary explores one intervention with potential cost-saving implications that has received comparably minimal consideration: spiritual care provision. It highlights the staff and patient costing benefits of spiritual care in addressing spiritual distress and urges practical policy and research initiatives to maximize its impact.

A systematic review of psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life of people with cancer and their family caregivers

Aims

To review the characteristics and effectiveness of psychosocial interventions on quality of life of adult people with cancer and their family caregivers.

Design

A systematic review using PRISMA guidelines.

Methods

Seven databases were searched from 2009-2019 using key terms. Included studies were assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies.

Results

1909 studies were retrieved with 12 studies included, involving 3,390 patients/caregivers. Interventions aimed to improve communication, behaviour change and setting short-term goals. Duration of interventions varied from 4-17 weeks. Highest benefit was gained from telephone interventions. Interventions based on interpersonal counselling appeared more effective than other approaches. Studies predominantly focused on psychological, physical and social domains of quality of life. Spiritual well-being received relatively little attention. A paradigm shift is needed to develop psychosocial interventions that incorporate spiritual well-being. More research is needed in developing countries.

The Catalogue of Spiritual Care Instruments: A Scoping Review

Spiritual care has been a growing focus in international healthcare research over the last decades. The approaches to spiritual care are many and derive from many different medical fields and different cultural contexts and often remain unknown across healthcare areas. This points to a potential knowledge gap between existing instruments and the knowledge and use of them cross-disciplinarily and cross-culturally, and thus best practice insights are not sufficiently shared. This article contributes to the growing field of spiritual care by providing an overview of the various approaches (henceforth instruments) to assess patients’ spiritual needs in view of improving spiritual care. This was done through a scoping review method. The results of the review were collected and catalogued and presented here as ‘The Catalogue of Spiritual Care Instruments’. The included instruments derive from a wide range of geographical contexts and healthcare areas and are aimed at patients and healthcare professionals alike, clearly showing that spiritual care is a focus in healthcare internationally. However, it also shows the difficulties of defining spiritual care, the importance of local contexts, and the difficulties of cross-cultural validity. The catalogue contains 182 entries and is available as an interactive platform for the further development of spiritual care internationally.

Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care and Moral Injury: Considerations Regarding Screening and Treatment

Moral injury is a complex trauma related syndrome involving a correlation of biological, psychological, social, and spiritual symptoms that can have substantial impact upon health and well-being. This paper argues for a holistic bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach to moral injury, by including chaplaincy in the screening and treatment of moral injury among actively serving military members and retired veterans. As part of the moral injury treatment process, and in alignment with the World Health Organization's Spiritual Intervention Codings, a new technique is proposed, "Pastoral Narrative Disclosure" (PND), as a guide for chaplains and others trained in spiritual care to assist those suffering from moral injury.