Spiritual Care in Improving Quality of Life of Patients, Caregivers, and Hospital Staff

OBJECTIVES:

I. To improve the quality of spiritual care provided by palliative care teams. II. To
measure the effectiveness of integrating spiritual care recommendations in palliative care
at City of Hope (COH) and the impact it has on cancer patients, families, and hospital
staff.

OUTLINE:

The expanded psychosocial/spiritual assessment administered by social workers includes a
spiritual history and a spiritual needs screening. Social worker knowledge and competence is
surveyed at baseline, immediately after the course, and after a bedside chaplain-mentoring
process. Inpatient cancer patients' and their caregivers' perceptions about spiritual care
is surveyed at baseline prior to the social work curriculum and after the course has been
completed and the new psychosocial/spiritual assessment has been implemented. Data collected
from patients, family members, and staff includes number of unduplicated palliative care
patients screened for spiritual concerns, spiritual history, number and type of spiritual
issues, number of referrals to the chaplain, number seen by the chaplain, number of
unduplicated palliative care patients with documented spiritual care plan, number of staff
development sessions offered and topics, attendance per topic, advance directives, and
referrals to hospice.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Admitted during the study quarter

- Admitted >= 5 days

- English speaking

- Alert and able to answer questions

Exclusion Criteria:

- Non-cancer diagnosis

- Previously accrued to study