Spiritual care is an important social determinant of health that is often under-utilized across health systems. Effective spiritual care integration can have beneficial health outcomes for patients, including heightened patient-clinician trust, medication adherence, and increased healthcare utilization and engagement. Yet, barriers to spiritual care exist. Research has shown that clinicians are often unfamiliar with the training, competencies, roles, and responsibilities of chaplains and the use of spiritual care in mitigating medically and ethically complex decision-making. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is an important setting to consider facilitators and barriers of spiritual care utilization; it is a complex health system with both outpatient and inpatient settings, rural and urban geographic locations, and a diverse Veteran patient population.
This project aims to: (1) conduct an observational study using administrative data to analyze trends in spiritual care utilization across the VHA over a 10-year period; (2) conduct qualitative interviews with VHA clinicians, administrators, chaplains and Veteran patients to identify potential barriers and facilitators to spiritual care integration and utilization and (3) consolidate findings from Aims 1 & 2 to develop and design accessible VHA resources to support spiritual care integration.
The study’s significance is through accessing corporate data to identify utilization patterns across the entire VHA, rather than individual units or facilities. Findings from this proposed project will inform policy and practice recommendations to facilitate spiritual care integration. The development of educational materials and best practice standards can lead in the development of a global model for spiritual care to promote the holistic well-being of Veteran patients and other patient populations.
