Study of An Acute Hospital Chaplaincy Service Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Study of an NHS Chaplaincy Service: Who are the users of NHS Chaplaincy Services and why do they access the service?
IRAS ID
179287
Contact name
Elizabeth Allison
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Leeds Beckett University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Research within hospital chaplaincy has not been extensive and the majority of research has focused on what chaplains do from a chaplain’s perspective (Mowat & Swinton 2005, Handzo et al. 2008, Nolan 2011). This study aims to understand who the users of an acute NHS hospital chaplaincy service are and why they access the service. No empirical evidence has been found that this mapping of service users has been done previously. This will provide the basis for a further qualitative study which will aim to gather more detailed information on user’s experience of a chaplaincy service using a narrative inquiry methodology.
This study will involve an audit of a chaplaincy team’s database to gain descriptive statistics of the service users. This will be followed by an examination of chaplains notes on a sample of the records in the database using a thematic analysis and this will be compared with a Taxonomy of Chaplaincy developed in the US.(Massey et al. 2015) Finally users of the service not represented in the database will be invited to take part in an interview.
The voice of the patient/service user is missing from nearly all research undertaken in chaplaincy. Most studies concentrate on asking chaplains what they do. Generally feedback from chaplaincy service users is that they have found the service to be beneficial but no research has been found that gives voice to the patient/user experience. Also much of the focus in the research is on work with patients but chaplains also work with staff, families and the Trust through for example working in education and development, bereavement services, volunteers. This study which is the groundwork for a further study where those service user experiences will be recorded and may contribute to the development of chaplaincy services by documenting who accesses the service and for what reasons.Handzo, G. F., et al. (2008) 'What Do Chaplains Really Do? I. Visitation in the New York Chaplaincy Study', Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 14(1), 20.
Massey, K., et al. (2015) 'What do I do? Developing a taxonomy of chaplaincy activities and interventions for spiritual care in intensive care unit palliative care', BMC Palliative Care.
Mowat, H. & Swinton, J. (2005) What do chaplains do: The role of the chaplain in Meeting the Spiritual Needs of Patients, Aberdeen.
Nolan, S. (2011) 'Hope beyond (redundant) hope: how chaplains work with dying patients', Palliative Medicine, 25(1), 21-25.
REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
15/WA/0450
Date of REC Opinion
2 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion