Symposium III
Spiritual Care – Concepts, Competencies and Challenges
Friday, May 13, 2016, 10:30 - 12:00
Chair: Mary Rute G. Esperandio
1. An interdisciplinary Model of Spiritual Care
René Hefti
Research Institute for Spirituality and Health, Langenthal, and University of Bern, Switzerland
Spiritual Care is an interdisciplinary task, a common effort of health care professionals to meet patient’s spiritual needs, to support his religious and spiritual resources and to identify spiritual struggles and distress. The theoretical foundation used in this presentation to constitute spiritual care is the extended bio-psycho-social model (Hefti 2003) putting religion and spirituality into a bio-psycho-social framework.
The the standard interdisciplinary team model defines spheres of responsibility for each health profession involved. The physician usually is the team leader and carries the main responsibility for the patient and the treatment as a whole. The role of hospital chaplains depends on their form of employment and the cultural context.
In the “Interdisciplinary Spiritual Care Model” the team shares responsibility on spiritual matters. Every team member can assess spiritual needs, resources or struggles and document them in the patient record. The role of the pastoral counselor becomes two-sided: on one hand he is the spiritual care expert administrating professional pastoral and spiritual care; on the other hand he/she has an important role in teaching and supporting the interdisciplinary team.
2. Barriers and Facilitators Towards the Delivery of Spiritual Care
Donia Baldacchino
Spiritual care is the provision of interventions which assess and address clients’ spiritual needs in collaboration with the family and multidisciplinary team. However, since spirituality is very often misunderstood for religiosity, spiritual issues in patient care tend to be referred to chaplains. However, research shows that patients perceive their spiritual needs as part of the overall care addressed by the health care professionals and the pastoral team. While considering that spirituality is applicable to both the believers and the non-believers, meeting spiritual needs may be achieved by various interventions, including the caregiver’s ‘being in doing’ whereby, one’s personal spirituality may contribute towards therapeutic spiritual care. The aim of this paper is to identify misconceptions of and barriers to the delivery of spiritual care; prioritize personal spirituality as the main predictor of care for the patient spiritually, and specify the contributing factors towards a spiritual environment conducive to delivery of spiritual care. Let the environment do no harm!
PowerPoint slides of the presentation (PDF)
3. The Design and Validation of a Framework of Competencies in Spiritual Care for Nurses and Midwives: A Modified Delphi Study
Josephine Attard
Instigated by an effort to counteract incidences of dissatisfaction in the provision of nursing/midwifery care reported in stories of undignified care, clients’ suffering and the demands of clients requesting a more personalised, sensitive and compassionate care and greater client choice, were the roots of my investigation. On examination, the roots of dissatisfaction with care can be traced to the neglect of the spiritual dimension in care such as shown by nurses’/ midwives’ lack of caring attitudes and values and lack of compassion in practice (Francis, 2013). These reinforce the importance of nurses/midwives adopting a holistic client-centred care through competencies that define the expectations for performance and scope of nursing/midwifery practice.
4. Spiritual Care in Brazil: Challenges and Possibilities of integrating Spirituality into Patient Care
Mary Rute G. Esperandio
In the last two decades, studies on the relationship between spirituality and health have grown significantly in the International literature. In Brazil, the debate on this subject has reached greater visibility since 2009, mainly in the health sciences, with the appearance of the term “spiritual care”. In theology, studies on spiritual care in the health care context are still scarce. This study aims to present the results of a literature review on “spiritual care” in the Brazilian (Portuguese) literature and discuss which are the main challenges and possibilities of integrating religion and spirituality into health care practices. The results suggest that the challenges are complexes and involve several areas of knowledge: health sciences (medicine and nursing), bioethics, psychology and theology. Above all, a new understanding based on an interdisciplinary perspective of spiritual care is urgent. New skills and competences are needed for health care professionals as well as training for students in the mentioned areas, i.e. medical doctors, nurses, hospital psychotherapists and chaplains. Considering that Brazilian people are very religious and the spiritual assistance in Brazilian hospitals is ensured by the Federal Law 9982 of July 14, 2000, the possibilities to develop good practices of integrating spirituality into patient care are tremendous. However, it demands the provision of a spiritual care based on inter-religious and intercultural perspective by all professionals, mainly the hospital chaplains, or people involved in this task (whether religious or lay people and volunteers). Spiritual care practice implies a focus on the spiritual needs of the patient regardless of health care professionals’ beliefs. In this sense, one of the main challenges is to provide training for health professionals and students. New capabilities, attitudes and knowledge need to be pursued and developed in order to better perceive and meet the spiritual needs of the suffering person.