Advancing Spiritual Care Through Research

Spiritist hospital chaplaincy in Brazil: 5 years of documented experience

Spiritist hospital chaplaincy in Brazil: 5 years of documented experience

Spiritist Hospital Chaplaincy in Brazil has been growing significantly in recent years, with the implementation of new services through the work of Spiritist Medical Associations (SMAs) in different regions of the country. This article describes the importance of historical interconnections from the advent of spiritism in the world and its introduction in Brazil to the emergence of Spiritist Hospital Chaplaincy in our country and presents the documented experience over 5 years of spiritist chaplain care, in the period from 2012 to 2016, guided by the SMA of Piracicaba at the Unimed Hospital of Piracicaba (São Paulo). We documented 41,914 visits to 13,983 inpatients and an analysis of these records allowed us to reflect on the importance of this service and confirm its expansion and acceptance by different contemporary religious beliefs.

 

Note: this article featured in the ACPE Research Network December 2017 Article of the Month.