What Difference do Chaplains Make: Analysis of Chaplain Interventions in Palliative Care in United Kingdom

Naturalistic pre-post survey design. People with palliative care needs referred to day care in participating hospices will be invited to participate in the study. Those consenting to take part will complete a baseline survey consisting of demographic data on age, gender, reason for admission and whether they self report as religious, spiritual, both, or neither. They also complete he Scottish Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM), a five item measure of spiritual outcome/well-being and a free text box. The patient then attends the day care for eight weeks, during which time they may see a chaplain regularly, infrequently, or not at all, entirely dependent on personal preference. The study is designed to be as naturalistic as possible. At the end of the 8 weeks patients complete a follow-up survey containing the same surveys as previous, plus four items about their experiences (or not) with the chaplain. During these eight weeks the chaplain also records the frequency and their interpretation of the depth of the visits with the patient. The primary purpose of the study is to explore the relationship between any change in Scottish PROM scores and the a) frequency and b) chaplain reported depth of the encounters. Secondary objectives are to examine the relationship between the change in PROM scores and the patient's experience of the chaplain interventions. It is hypothesised that the better the chaplain and/or patient self reported experience of the chaplain the greater the improvement in PROM scores. Whether there is any relationship between improvement in PROM scores and whether the patient self describes as religious, spiritual, both or neither will also be analysed.