The outcomes of healthcare chaplaincy on hospitalized patients. A quasi-experimental study in Belgium

ABSTRACT

Research on the effects of chaplaincy care is scarce and hampered by methodological limitations. Our quasi-experimental study (n = 256 at baseline) aimed to gain insight into the immediate and intermediate impact of chaplaincy care on inpatients’ existential anxiety, peace, anxiety and depressive symptoms. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze the data. After controlling for age, gender, education, (non)religion/(non)belief and religiosity, participants receiving chaplaincy care demonstrated greater immediate improvement in peace compared to the control group at posttest. This was not found for anxiety, depressive symptoms or existential anxiety, nor for any of the outcomes at the three-week follow-up assessment.

KEYWORDS:

• Chaplaincy
• healthcare
• spiritual care
• outcome

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the University Hospitals in Leuven and especially Dr. Martijn Steegen and his chaplaincy team for their willingness to participate in this research. The ENHCC and ERICH stimulated us to plan this project by emphasizing the need for outcome research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [EB], upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. Within the same study, we also asked patients about their hope, positive and negative religious coping and positive re-appraisal and acceptance. As we considered those variables, at least theoretically, to be processes within chaplaincy care rather than outcomes, we will focus on these variables in another paper.

2. All chaplains in the participating hospital have a Catholic background. If necessary and/or requested by the patient, a Muslim or Jewish (sometimes an imam or rabbi) or a humanist chaplain can be called. Such interventions were not included in this study since the hospital has no fitting trained employees.

3. These numbers are not cumulative because sometimes several reasons applied to a single patient.

Additional information

Funding

This study is funded by KU Leuven Internal Funds [3H180267].