Advancing Spiritual Care Through Research

What’s Research Got To Do With It? Nurturing Research Literacy for Spiritual Care

What’s Research Got To Do With It? Nurturing Research Literacy for Spiritual Care

Spiritual Care in a Clinical Setting has traditionally be informed by a subjective understanding of caregivers whether their interventions and practices have been effective or not. Not much research has been done to evaluate how what we as chaplains do impacts those we seek to give care to. Therefore it has often been difficult for us to communicate what we do to other disciplines who speak the language of research and evidence-based practices. Developing research literacy as a discipline broadens our ability as chaplain to move beyond personal anecdotal evidence to a broader input of spiritual care research. It can help us better evaluate how we contribute to the safety, hope and recovery of those we are serving. It contributes to our ability to communicate with other disciplines and helps us improve our practices.