The Beneficial Role of Spiritual Counseling in Heart Failure Patients

Abstract

To ascertain the beneficial role of spiritual counseling in patients with chronic heart failure. This is a pilot study evaluating the effects of adjunct spiritual counseling on quality of life (QoL) outcomes in patients with heart failure. Patients were assigned to "religious" or "non-religious" counseling services based strictly on their personal preferences and subsequently administered standardized QoL questionnaires. A member of the chaplaincy or in-house volunteer organization visited the patient either daily or once every 2 days throughout the duration of their hospitalization. All patients completed questionnaires at baseline, at 2 weeks, and at 3 months. Each of the questionnaires was totaled, with higher scores representing positive response, except for one survey measure where lower scores represent improvement (QIDS-SR16). Twenty-three patients (n = 23, age 57 ± 11, 11 (48 %) male, 12 (52 %) female, mean duration of hospital stay 20 ± 15 days) completed the study. Total mean scores were assessed on admission, at 2 weeks and at 3 months. For all patients in the study, the mean QIDS-SR16 scores were 8.5 (n = 23, SD = 3.3) versus 6.3 (n = 18, SD = 3.5) versus 7.3 (n = 7, SD = 2.6). Mean FACIT-Sp-Ex (version 4) scores were 71.1 (n = 23, SD = 15.1) versus 74.7 (n = 18, SD = 20.9) versus 81.4 (n = 7, SD = 8.8). The mean MSAS scores were 2.0 (n = 21, SD = 0.6) versus 1.8 (n = 15, SD = 0.7) versus 2.5 (n = 4, SD = 0.7). Mean QoL Enjoyment and Satisfaction scores were 47.2 % (n = 23, SD = 15.0 %) versus 53.6 % (n = 18, SD = 16.4 %) versus 72.42 % (n = 7, SD = 22 %). The addition of spiritual counseling to standard medical management for patients with chronic heart failure patients appears to have a positive impact on QoL.

Multi-disciplinary palliative care is effective in people with symptomatic heart failure: A systematic review and narrative synthesis

“…Conclusions from the non-randomised trials 32 and observational studies regarding the precise impact of the intervention should be cautious due to risk of selection bias and effect of confounders which were either not reported, or, if they were, adjusted findings were not presented.…”

“…Study design and setting. Eight papers reporting seven evaluation phase randomised controlled trials, [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] four feasibility and pilot phase studies/randomised controlled trials, [28][29][30][31] one quasi-experimental study, 32 seven cohort studies, [33][34][35][36][37][38][39] two case-control studies 40,41 and one cross-sectional study 42 were included. The characteristics of included studies are summarised in Table 1 (interventional studies) and Table 2 (observational studies).…”

Spirituality, Spiritual Well-Being, and Spiritual Coping in Advanced Heart Failure: Review of the Literature

“…Chaplaincy has historically been the recommended intervention and continues to be a common suggestion (Attard, Baldacchino, & Camilleri, 2014;Baldacchino, 2008aBaldacchino, , 2008bBaldacchino, , 2011Bean et al, 2009;Bekelman et al, 2007;Bekelman et al, 2010;Blaber et al, 2015;Blinderman & Billings, 2015;H. Y. L. Chan, Yu, et al, 2016;Cooper & Chang, 2016;Ross & Austin, 2015;Tadwalkar et al, 2014;Williams, Voss, Vahle, & Capp, 2016). Chaplaincy services are the standard of care given in current palliative care guidelines (McCusker et al, 2013).…”

Who can provide spiritual counseling? A qualitative study from Iran

“…[ 2 ] On the other hand, spiritual interventions have become attractive for many people, and effectiveness of these interventions on various groups of physical-mental patients and healthy individuals has been proved. [ 3 4 5 6 7 ]…”

“…For instance, numerous studies have pointed to the role of pastoral counselors and religious experts in providing these services. [ 5 ] Moss and Snodgrass conducted a study on cancer patients and found that health providers should introduce these patients to a pastoral counselor who is expert in religious cases since the minds of these patients are occupied with their religious beliefs. [ 12 13 ] In addition, Memaryan et al .…”