Scared but Powerful: Healthcare Chaplains’ Emotional Responses and Self-Care Modes during the SARS-Cov-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Drawing from both the qualitative free-text responses and quantitative responses to an international survey of 1657 chaplains serving during the SARS-Cov-19 pandemic, we explore chaplains' emotional responses to the pandemic and how emotion connects to self-care. This paper reports on the modes of self-care practiced by chaplains, including modes reported as unavailable due to pandemic restrictions. Lastly, we explore how effective spiritual care leadership may mediate chaplain emotions and ultimately chaplain self-care.

Impact on Hospital Staff When Organising Spiritual Care for Patients During Pandemics

“…In Spain, there was also a ban on visits to hospitals and patients had no contact with the outside world or their relatives, which made the need greater. A German and a Belgian study had similar findings (Büntzel et al, 2021;Desjardins et al, 2021).…”

A Mixed-Methods Pilot Study of a Well-Being Intervention for Healthcare Chaplains

“…Participants universally expressed appreciation for the content of the workshop sessions. Self-care has been vital to chaplains as they contend with the strong emotions associated with the pandemic and there are calls to further integrate self-care strategies into pastoral education (Desjardins et al, 2021; Parker, 2021). One chaplain described the workshops as encouraging them to “put self-care on the front burner.” The impact of the lessons learned generally helped increase self-awareness and varied from adopting new personal insights and habits to substantial shifts in perceptions of chaplaincy:“And it's easy to approach my calling as a chaplain as being so service-oriented that every sacrifice is a worthy sacrifice.…”

“…Participants universally expressed appreciation for the content of the workshop sessions. Self-care has been vital to chaplains as they contend with the strong emotions associated with the pandemic and there are calls to further integrate self-care strategies into pastoral education (Desjardins et al, 2021;Parker, 2021). One chaplain described the workshops as encouraging them to "put selfcare on the front burner."…”

Chaplain Leadership During COVID-19: An International Expert Panel

“…Additionally, on average, participating chaplains felt their role was neither clear nor unclear to them during the pandemic. Qualitative findings reflected diverging themes in chaplains' experiences such as being seen as unimportant, optional, and being professionally isolated, compared to those who were viewed as essential, well-integrated, and valued in their healthcare institutions' COVID-19 response (Desjardins et al, 2021;Jones et al, 2020;Tan et al, 2021). However, further attention is needed to unpack the complex and interconnected factors that may have underlain and precipitated the state of chaplaincy during COVID-19, such as the roles of hospital administration, chaplain leaders, chaplain practitioners, interprofessional teams, and the larger healthcare delivery systems.…”

“…Whether organizational leadership or distributed leadership among practitioners, chaplain leadership may have significantly shaped how chaplains’ roles and contributions were perceived and valued and how chaplains were deployed and integrated in patient care during a global health crisis. Views regarding chaplain leadership and being led during this crisis can be found in research about chaplains’ and spiritual care services’ responses to COVID-19 ( Byrne & Nuzum, 2020 ; Desjardins et al, 2021 ; Drummond & Carey, 2020 ; Harrison & Scarle, 2020 ; Snowden, 2021 ; Tan et al, 2021 ; Tata et al, 2021 ; Vandenhoeck et al, 2021 ), and in the associated professional development recommendations ( Flynn et al, 2021 ). However, research explicitly examining chaplain leadership factors during the pandemic has not been published to date.…”