Hospital chaplains facing the pandemic. A qualitative study

Abstract

The article explores hospital chaplains perspective on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the provision of spiritual care in Poland. Semi-structured interviews with sixteen hospital chaplains providing spiritual care in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic were performed. Six main themes emerged during the interviews: chaplains’ experience of the pandemic, chaplaincy during the outbreak, patients’ needs, health professionals needs, social stigma and discriminatory behaviours against chaplains, and the importance of spiritual care during the crisis. Results indicate that although the COVID-19 crisis has limited the possibilities of providing spiritual care in hospitals and has changed its nature, it has positively impacted the visibility of hospital chaplaincy. It also underpins the contribution of hospital chaplains to modern healthcare practice and suggests that chaplains role as key healthcare workers should be further recognized and their integration into the healthcare system is required.

Keywords:

• Chaplaincy
• COVID-19
• hospital care
• spiritual care

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank all the chaplains who agreed to share their stories and who participated in the study.

Ethical approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethics approval and research governance approval were obtained from the Poznan University of Medical Sciences Bioethics Committee (KB − 51/21).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).