The Measure of Palliative Care Spiritual Care Competency and the Effectiveness of an Educational Program for Palliative Spiritual Care Providers

Although spiritual care is an important area in palliative care, little attention is paid to the palliative care spiritual care provider’s educational training. The purpose of the research proposal is to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational program for palliative care spiritual care providers. This is a three-year study. The goal of the first year study is to develop an instrument to measure palliative spiritual provider’s competency. In order to achieve the goal, 20 palliative spiritual care professionals will be recruited and 3-4 focused groups will be conducted to identify competencies in the provision of spiritual care. Based on the finding, the Spiritual Care Provider’s Competency Scale (SCPCS) will be developed. The reliability and validity of the scale will be investigated. The goal of the second year study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational program for the palliative spiritual care providers. The single group pretest-posttest research design will be adopted. A total of 120-150 research participants who participate in the educational program (including a 10 hours’ primary and a 10 hours’ advanced educational program) will be measured by the SCPCS before and after the provision of the educational program. 20 research participants from each of the primary and advanced educational program will be recruited. 3-4 focused groups will be conducted to collect the data of participants’ learning experiences. The effectiveness of the educational program will be evaluated by the results of the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data. The third year study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a clinical training program for the palliative spiritual care providers. The single group pretest-posttest research design will be adopted. A total of 30-40 research participants who participate in the clinical training program (including a 5 days’ primary clinical training and a 10 days’ advanced clinical training) will be measured by the SCPCS before and after the provision of the clinical training program. In addition, the performance of these 30-40 research participants’ case reports will be evaluated by two clinical trainers/supervisors. Furthermore, 20 research participants from each of the primary and advanced clinical training program will be recruited. Focused group will be conducted to collect the data of these research participants’ learning experiences. The effectiveness of the clinical training program will be evaluated by the results of the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data. At last, a training manual for palliative spiritual care providers will compiled for training palliative care spiritual care providers in the future.