The Correlates of Chaplains' Effectiveness in Meeting the Spiritual/Religious and Emotional Needs of Patients

Abstract

The study was designed to assess the degree to which two sets of measures about chaplains' visits with patients predicted patients' perceptions that their spiritual/religious needs and their emotional needs were met by the chaplain. The first set consisted of seven items about the chaplain's demeanor during the visit. The second set measured patient satisfaction with seven aspects of the chaplain's care, including specific interventions. Overall, the latter items were more highly correlated with, and were better predictors of patients' perceptions that the chaplain met both their spiritual/religious needs and their emotional needs than were the demeanor items. The findings indicate the usefulness of measuring the effectiveness of specific chaplain interventions. The authors discuss that effectiveness measures may be more useful that patient satisfaction measures for assessing pastoral care.