Ambulatory mental health professionals discussing spiritual care in a multidisciplinary meeting

Abstract

SUMMARY Ambulatory mental health professionals discussing spiritual care in a multidisciplinary meeting

Background: Spirituality is an important dimension of health. Spiritual care is defined by Swinton as concerning “the issues of meaning, purpose, hope, value, connectedness in relationships, and for some people connection to faith and God”. Through spiritual care, patients can achieve more inner peace and their suffering can be reduced. Currently, mental health organizations focus on developing ambulatory care. It is unknown how mental health professionals can provide spiritual care to outpatients in their own environments.

Aim: To explore the ways in which mental health professionals of an ambulatory team discuss the spiritual care of psychiatric patients in a multidisciplinary care meeting and to explore the barriers and facilitators that appear from what mental health professionals report about the ways they discuss spiritual care.

Methods: Two teams of ambulatory mental health professionals who provide care to psychiatric outpatients are included. Qualitative data was retrieved from recordings of multidisciplinary meetings and focus groups. Data is analyzed using open coding.

Results: Themes from the data that concern spirituality included meaningful activities, contact with other people, overall life satisfaction, identity, and religion. Meaningful activities received the most attention in a meeting. Sometimes, the patient’s perspective was absent. Spiritual care receives less priority in a meeting due to preconditions such as the system of diagnosis-related groups reimbursement. Several preconditions stimulated discussing spiritual care such as focusing on recovery-oriented care.

Conclusions: Not all areas of spirituality were given equal attention. Preconditions in providing care could stimulate or impede the discussion of spiritual care.

Recommendations: It is important to educate professionals about the importance of spirituality and stimulate a vision of recovery-oriented care. Further research is necessary to explore the patients’ perspective in spiritual care.