Staking a Claim: Setting the Strategic Research Agenda for Chaplaincy Care in Health

Despite playing a central role in caring for suffering patients, professional health care chaplains remain marginalized within mainstream medical practice. Although there is much anecdotal and some empirical evidence that chaplains can play a meaningful part in overall healing, the body of scientific research on the subject is insufficient. To meet this need, the Health Care Chaplaincy will oversee a comprehensive research program to develop new measures and methods to document which forms of spiritual counseling and intervention are most helpful to patients. The goals include developing a best-practices model of medical chaplaincy in palliative and end-of-life care; the development of new methods and measures for assessing effectiveness; and the creation of a dynamic network of researchers committed to furthering rigorous chaplaincy research.

Grant Amount:

$2,998,745

Start Date:

August 2011

End Date:

July 2014

Grant ID:

22399, 14920

 Suite of 2 separate grants totaling $3,197,745