title: Effects of spiritual care training for palliative care professionals.
abstract: Little is known about the effects of spiritual care training for professionals in palliative medicine. We therefore investigated prospectively the effects of such training over a six-month period. All 63 participants of the three and a half-day training were asked to fill out three questionnaires: before and after the training, as well as six months later. The questionnaires included demographic data, numeric rating scales about general attitudes towards the work in palliative care, the Self-Transcendence Scale (STS), the spiritual subscale of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT-Sp) and the Idler Index of Religiosity (IIR). Forty-eight participants (76%) completed all three questionnaires (91% women, median age 49 years; 51% nurses, 16% hospice volunteers, 14% physicians). Significant and sustained improvements were found in self-perceived compassion for the dying (after the training: P=0.002; 6 months later: P=0.025), compassion for oneself (P <0.001; P =0.013), attitude towards one's family (P =0.001; P =0.031), satisfaction with work (P < 0.001; P = 0.039), reduction in work-related stress (P < 0.001; P = 0.033), and attitude towards colleagues (P = 0.039; P = 0.040), as well as in the FACIT-Sp (P < 0.001; P = 0.040). Our results suggest that the spiritual care training had a positive influence on the spiritual well-being and the attitudes of the participating palliative care professionals which was preserved over a six-month period.
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Centre for Palliative Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wasner
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Longaker
authors.forename: Martin Johannes
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Fegg
authors.forename: Gian Domenico
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Borasio
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010166:Palliative Care; D010327:Pastoral Care / Q000379:methods*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D012067:Religion; D029181:Spirituality; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires