Teaching health care providers to provide spiritual care: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND Health care providers' lack of education on spiritual care is a significant barrier to the integration of spiritual care into health care services. OBJECTIVE The study objective was to describe the training program, Clinical Pastoral Education for Healthcare Providers (CPE-HP) and evaluate its impact on providers' spiritual care skills. METHODS Fifty CPE-HP participants completed self-report surveys at baseline and posttraining measuring frequency of and confidence in providing religious/spiritual (R/S) care. Four domains were assessed: (1) ability and (2) frequency of R/S care provision; (3) comfort using religious language; and (4) confidence in providing R/S care. RESULTS At baseline, participants rated their ability to provide R/S care and comfort with religious language as "fair." In the previous two weeks, they reported approximately two R/S patient conversations, initiated R/S conversations less than twice, and prayed with patients less than once. Posttraining participants' reported ability to provide spiritual care increased by 33% (p<0.001). Their comfort using religious language improved by 29% (p<0.001), and frequency of R/S care increased 75% (p<0.001). Participants reported having 61% more (p<0.001) R/S conversations and more frequent prayer with patients (95% increase; p<0.001). Confidence in providing spiritual care improved by 36% overall, by 20% (p<0.001) with religiously concordant patients, and by 43% (p<0.001) with religiously discordant patients. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that CPE-HP is an effective approach for training health care providers in spiritual care. Dissemination of this training may improve integration of spiritual care into health care, thereby strengthening comprehensive patient-centered care.