Implementing Spiritual Care in the Pediatric Complex Care Clinic

Abstract

A project integrated a Clinical Pastoral Education Fellow into a clinic designed to treat children with medical complexity (CMC). The integration of a chaplain into the care team fulfilled the goal of increasing accessibility to spiritual care through a quality improvement project and seemed to positively affect patients and the interdisciplinary team itself. These efforts demonstrate the need for research to better understand the relationship between spiritual screenings, interventions, and outcomes for CMC patients.

Keywords

Spiritual screening spiritual interventions children with medical complexity pediatric spiritual care chaplain

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bartel

(2004). What is spiritual? What is spiritual suffering? The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling: JPCC, 58(3), 187–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/154230500405800304

Elkins

Cavendish

(2004). Developing a plan for pediatric spiritual care. Holistic Nursing Practice, 18(4), 179–184. quiz 185-176. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004650-200407000-00002

Forouzi

M. A.

Tirgari

Safarizadeh

M. H.

Jahani

(2017). Spiritual needs and quality of life of patients with cancer. Indian Journal of Palliative Care, 23(4), 437–444. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijpc.Ijpc_53_17

Handzo

Hughes

Bowden

Kelly

Lynch

Mercier

Pavlantos

Rothstein

Tuttle

(2022). Chaplaincy in the outpatient setting-getting from here to there. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 28(2), 194–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2020.1818359

Kelly

J. A.

May

C. S.

Maurer

S. H.

(2016). Assessment of the spiritual needs of primary caregivers of children with life-limiting illnesses is valuable yet inconsistently performed in the hospital. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 19(7), 763–766. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2015.0509

Madrigal

V. N.

Carroll

K. W.

Faerber

J. A.

Walter

J. K.

Morrison

W. E.

Feudtner

(2016). Parental sources of support and guidance when making difficult decisions in the pediatric intensive care unit. The Journal of Pediatrics, 169, 221–226.e224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2015.10.061

Massey

Barnes

M. J.

Villines

Goldstein

J. D.

Pierson

A. L.

Scherer

Vander Laan

Summerfelt

W. T.

(2015). What do I do? Developing a taxonomy of chaplaincy activities and interventions for spiritual care in intensive care unit palliative care. BMC Palliative Care, 14, 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-015-0008-0

Murray

S. A.

Kendall

Boyd

Worth

Benton

T. F.

(2004). Exploring the spiritual needs of people dying of lung cancer or heart failure: A prospective qualitative interview study of patients and their carers. Palliative Medicine, 18(1), 39–45. https://doi.org/10.1191/0269216304pm837oa

Nageswaran

Banks

Golden

S. L.

Gower

W. A.

King

N. M. P.

(2022). The role of religion and spirituality in caregiver decision-making about tracheostomy for children with medical complexity. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 28(1), 95–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2020.1755812

10.

Nash

Roberts

Nash

Darby

Parwaz

A. A.

(2019). Adapting the advocate health care taxonomy of chaplaincy for a pediatric hospital context: A pilot study. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 25(2), 61–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2018.1473911.

11.

Ogrinc

Mooney

S. E.

Estrada

Foster

Goldmann

Hall

L. W.

Huizinga

M. M.

Liu

S. K.

Mills

Neily

Nelson

Pronovost

P. J.

Provost

Rubenstein

L. V.

Speroff

Splaine

Thomson

Tomolo

A. M.

Watts

(2008). The SQUIRE (Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence) guidelines for quality improvement reporting: Explanation and elaboration. Quality & Safety in Health Care, 17(Suppl_1), i13–i32. https://doi.org/10.1136/qshc.2008.029058

12.

Spiritual Care Association . (2019). The chaplaincy taxonomy: Standardizing spiritual care terminology. https://www.spiritualcareassociation.org/white-paper-the-chaplaincy-taxonomy.html

13.

Superdock

A. K.

Barfield

R. C.

Brandon

D. H.

Docherty

S. L.

(2018). Exploring the vagueness of religion & spirituality in complex pediatric decision-making: A qualitative study. BMC Palliative Care, 17, 107. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-018-0360-y

14.

Tata

Nuzum

Murphy

Karimi

Cadge

(2021). Staff-care by chaplains during COVID-19. The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling: JPCC, 75(1_suppl), 24–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1542305020988844

15.

Vandenhoeck

Holmes

Desjardins

C. M.

Verhoef

(2021). “The most effective experience was a flexible and creative attitude”—reflections on those aspects of spiritual care that were lost, gained, or deemed ineffective during the pandemic. The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling: JPCC, 75(1_suppl), 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1542305020987991

16.

Wei

Kifner

Dawes

M. E.

Wei

T. L.

Boyd

J. M.

(2020). Self-care strategies to combat burnout among pediatric critical care nurses and physicians. Critical Care Nurse, 40(2), 44–53. https://doi.org/10.4037/ccn2020621

17.

Wiener

McConnell

D. G.

Latella

Ludi

(2013). Cultural and religious considerations in pediatric palliative care. Palliative and Supportive Care, 11(1), 47–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1478951511001027

18.

Yilmaz

(2019). Spiritual orientation, meaning in life, life satisfaction, and well-being in mothers with disabled children. Journal of Religion and Health, 58(6), 2251–2262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00925-4