Ministering to Patient and Person

What do chaplains really do? I. Visitation in the New York Chaplaincy Study

The current study presents findings from the New York Chaplaincy Study about chaplain visits with patients and their families in 13 healthcare institutions in the Greater New York City area during 1994-1996. It documents the distribution of 34,279 clinical visits by religious affiliation, population served (patients, family and friends), and type of healthcare setting (acute care and non-acute care), and analyzes the number and duration of visits with patients by their medical status. Chaplains in acute settings tended to make less frequent but longer visits with patients than chaplains in non-acute settings. On average, chaplains spent less time with patients who were alone than they did during visits with patients whose family was present during the visit or visits with only family members. Average visit duration was positively related to the percentage of visits in each of the 13 facilities that were made in response to referrals (r = .65, p < .05), and the average duration of referred visits was significantly longer (p < .001) than that of non-referred visits (p < .001). The findings are intended to provide a general picture of what these particular chaplains did in these particular institutions over this particular time-period and are not intended to represent a standard of what chaplains should be doing.

Teaching on the spiritual dimension in care to undergraduate nursing students: the content and teaching methods

The study unit on 'The spiritual dimension in care'had a Judeo-Christian orientation. It was introduced to the Diploma nursing curriculum at the University of Malta in the academic year 2002-2003. The aim was to increase students' awareness about the essence of spirituality in care so as to enable them to implement holistic care. Spirituality may or may not incorporate religiosity. Thus, believers may have spiritual needs which may include religious needs whilst the atheists and agnostics may still have spiritual needs. While considering secularisation, the Christian culture of Malta was addressed in this study unit. This article describes the content structure of the study unit based on the ASSET model (Narayanasamy, A., 1999. ASSET: a model for actioning spirituality and spiritual care education and training in nursing. Nurse Education Today 19, 274-285) and outlines the various teaching methods used. Following feedback from the first and second cohort groups in 2003 and 2004, respectively, the reviewed study unit was delivered to the third cohort group of students (n=65) in Semester 2 in the academic year 2004-2005. Apart from the use of traditional teaching methods, such as lessons and a seminar, other methods were used constantly throughout the study unit, for example, self-reflection exercises, case-studies and small group discussions to enhance learning. Recommendations are proposed to review the content of this study unit and to introduce other teaching methods for effective learning.