Addressing spiritual needs in palliative care:Proposal for a narrative and interfaith spiritual care intervention for chaplaincy

Although many recognize the importance of addressing the spiritualdomain in palliative care, empirically grounded interventionsdesigned to alleviate spiritual needs for patients in palliative care areremarkably scarce. In this paper we argue that the development ofsuch interventions for chaplains is important in order to improvespiritual care in a (post)secular and religiously plural context. Wetherefore propose an interfaith chaplain-led spiritual care interventionfor home-based palliative care that addresses patients’ spiritualneeds. The intervention is based on elements of spiritual care interventionsthat have been investigated among other populations.Three important characteristics of the proposed intervention are (1)life review; (2) materiality, ritual and embodiment; and (3) imagination.The aim of this intervention is to improve palliative patients’spiritual wellbeing. It is anticipated that such a structured interventioncould assist in improving spiritual care in palliative care