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Chaplains: Influence on Healthcare

Overview:
Topic: Chaplains: influence on Healthcare
Setting: Hospital grief support group
Audience: Participants who have suffered from a loss
Instructional Objectives:
Cognitive:
1. The Participants will explain their experiences with chaplains.
Psychomotor:
1. The Participants will identify the roles of chaplains correctly in an activity.
2. The participants will be given a scenario and determine how a chaplain could have influenced the
situation.
Focus Statement (1 minute):
Who has had contact with a chaplain in a healthcare setting? As we can see there arent many people that
have and that is why we need to understand how important Chaplains are. (Leads into Activity 1)
Outline of Content (notes for instructor):

Patients have a right to spiritual care

Serious illness frightens patients and isolates them from their support communities when they need
them most.
o Losses such as physical and cognitive capacities, independence, work or family status, and
emotional stability, along with the accompanying grief, can seriously impact their sense of
meaning, purpose, and personal worth.

Professional chaplains address these crises through spiritual care that emphasizes divine existence
and enhances connections to support communities, this in turn aids in healing and recovery.

Compassion and comfort become important focal points of care when illness is chronic or incurable.

Approaching death can bring forth serious spiritual questions that contribute to anxiety, depression,
'hopelessness and despair. Professional chaplains bring time-tested spiritual resources that help
patients focus on transcendent meaning, purpose, and value.

Often family members experience similar or more intense distress than their hospitalized loved ones.

Many studies have been done to show the importance of Chaplains in a healthcare setting.
o Patients have indicated that one of the most important chaplaincy functions is helping their

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family members with feelings associated with illness and hospitalization (Carey, 1973; Carey,
1985).
o In one study. 56 percent of the families identified religion as the most important factor in
helping them cope with their loved one's illness (Koenig, Hover, Bearon, & Travis, 1991).
o In another study, family members rated spiritual care from chaplains more highly than
patients (Vandecreek. Thomas, Jessen, Gibbons & Strasser. 1991).
o Compared to those whose spiritual needs were not being met, caregivers of Alzheimer's
patients who worshiped regularly and who felt their spiritual needs were being met reported
greater well-being and decreased stress (Burgener, 1999).

Instructional Activities:
1. Chaplain experiences activity (cognitive 1) [5 minutes]
This will be just an informal activity that the facilitator will ask the participant if they have had
experiences with chaplains at any time while being in a healthcare setting. Those who have will
be asked to explain how this effected their perspective and how the outcome could have been
different if the chaplains were not there.
2. Group identification of roles activity (psychomotor 1) [15-20 minutes]
This activity will allow the participants to understand and learn what a chaplains role actually
is in the healthcare industry by their peers. What will happen is the facilitator will pass out
notecards that have characteristics or roles on them. The participants will go one by one and
explain why they think this role is important in the healthcare industry for chaplains.
1. Provide spiritual care and support in an Acute care setting
2. Provide spiritual care and support in a Long-term care setting
3. Provide spiritual care and support in an Assisted living setting
4. Provide spiritual care and support in a Rehabilitation setting
5. Provide spiritual care and support in a Mental health setting
6. Provide spiritual care and support in an Outpatient services setting
7. Provide spiritual care and support in an Addiction treatment setting
8. Provide spiritual care and support to those with developmental disability
9. Provide spiritual care and support in a Hospice setting
10. Provide spiritual care and support in a palliative care setting
11. Respectful to multi-cultural and multi-faith individuals/patients.

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12. Understanding of the impact of illness on individuals and their caregivers

13. Knowledge of healthcare organizational structure and dynamics
14. Accountability as part of a professional patient care team
15. Accountability to their faith groups
16. They provide supportive spiritual care through empathic listening and demonstrating
an understanding of persons in distress.
17. Perform Grief and loss care along with Risk screening
18. Identifying individuals whose religious/spiritual conflicts may compromise recovery
19. Crisis intervention/Critical Incident Stress Debriefing
20. Communication with caregivers
21. Facilitation of staff communication
22. Conflict resolution among staff members, patients, and family members
23. Referral and linkage to internal and external resources
24. Assistance with decision making and communication regarding decedent affairs
25. Staff support relative to personal crises or work stress
26. Institutional support during organizational change or crisis
27. Participation in medical rounds and patients care conferences
28. offering perspectives on the spiritual status of patients
29. Participation in interdisciplinary education
30. Charting spiritual care interventions in medical charts
31. Chaplains are Attentive
32. Chaplains must be present when communicating and must have an ear to listen
33. Must have Patience
34. Must be Compassionate
35. Have some kind of spiritual training

3. Group Scenario activity (psychomotor 2) [10 minutes]

The facilitator will read out loud a scenario and then will ask the participants what they think could
have been changed or what could have happened to make the situation better using a chaplain. After
we see the differences we will compare the outcomes of the situation with or without a chaplain

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present.
Scenario:
Mary found her father unresponsive at his home. She quickly called 911 and the ambulance rushed
him to the hospital. The doctors stabilized him in the ER and then sent him to the ICU. He began to
respond when he arrived to the ICU. He complained of respiratory distress and had to be monitored
closely. Mary went home for the day to make arrangements for her children and work. When she
returned the next day her father was on the ventilator. When she asked what had happened she was
told he stopped breathing on his own and they had to place him on the ventilator. She was scared and
wasnt sure what was happening to her father who was fine a few days ago. She still didnt
understand what was going on with her dad. Her father started having seizures while she was in the
room and she called the nurse in but by the time they had got to him the seizing had stopped. They
were worried about his brain function because following the seizure he became unresponsive again.
Mary kept asking the staff to explain what was going on but the staff still werent sure for
themselves. Mary had no other family and was the only one that could be there for her father. She
was frightened and didnt know what to do. She wanted her father better as soon as possible. The
doctor ordered a bunch of tests and they found nothing wrong with his brain but his bloodwork came
back and indicated his kidney function was declining and he would need to be put on dialysis when
they could get everything else stable and get him off some of his medication. Mary didnt know her
fathers wishes and he didnt have an advanced directive to help her. She was worried about his
health and if she was doing what he would have wanted. After a couple of days his kidney function
started to improve but his heart rhythm was a little high. He began breathing a little better on the
vent and she was hopeful for a recovery. All the doctors expected him to be better in a couple weeks.
She sat by his side day and night. She dozed off a little at a time and on the 9th day they were there
she was awoke by all the ICU nurses rushing in to the room with the crash cart. She was forced to go
to the waiting room to wait. She waited for 30 minutes. This felt like days. She then heard the door
slowly creep open and the doctor entered with a disturbed look. Marys father had died unexpectedly
from cardiac arrest.

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Materials needed:
Chaplain experience activity
N/A
Group Identification of roles activity
Notecards with roles on them
Group Scenario Activity
Scenario written out