The Essence of Spiritual Care

The Essence of Spiritual CareSpiritual Health Australia in partnership with Palliative Care Australia are thrilled to offer The Essence of Spiritual Care, the first in a series of free e-learning modules on spirituality in health and palliative care designed especially for health care workers.


About this module

Thank you for undertaking The Essence of Spiritual Care. This module will take you approximately 60-90 minutes to complete.

There are three other modules in the Spirituality in Health and Palliative Care Course for optional further learning.

  • Module 1: The Essence of Spiritual Care
  • Module 2: Spiritual Care and Professional Practice
  • Module 3: Paediatric Spirituality in a Healthcare Context
  • Module 4: Spirituality, Culture and Context

Pre-program questionnaire

To support the program please complete the Pre-program questionnaire.

All responses are de-identified.

Compliance

This course aligns with the
National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards, Second Edition
– Standards 2 and 5.

Compliance standards

Module topics

  • What is spiritual care? What is spirituality?
  • Listening, presence and empathy
  • The art of spiritual care.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this module you will be able to:

  • describe the principles of spiritual care in a healthcare context
  • demonstrate a capacity to use a variety of spiritual care interventions to support another.

Resources in this module

  • Fitchett, G., Hisey Pierson, A. L., Hoffmeyer, C., Labuschagne, D., Lee, A., Levine, S., O’Mahony, S., Pugliese, K., & Waite, N. (2020). Development of the PC-7, a Quantifiable Assessment of Spiritual Concerns of Patients Receiving Palliative Care Near the End of Life. Journal of palliative medicine, 23(2), 248–253. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2019.0188
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  • Hughes, B., Massey, K., Lindsay, B., Barnes, M., Nash, P., & Hall, E. (2019) The Chaplaincy Taxonomy: Standardizing spiritual care. Health Care Chaplaincy Network & Spiritual Care Association.
    https://sdcoalition.org
  • Meaningful Ageing Australia. (2017). ConnecTo Spiritual Screening Tool – Tool.
    https://meaningfulageing.org.au
  • Monod, S. M., Rochat, E., Bula, C. J., Jobin, G., Martin, E., & Spencer, B. (2010). The spiritual distress assessment tool: An instrument to assess spiritual distress in hospitalised elderly persons. BMC Geriatrics, 10(1), 88. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-10-88
    https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com
  • Puchalski, C. M. (2012) Chapter 29: Restorative medicine. In Cobb, M., Puchalski, C. M., & Rumbold, B. (Eds.), Oxford textbook of spirituality in healthcare (pp. 197-210). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199571390.001.0001
    https://launch.test.elearningstudio.com.au
  • Puchalski, C. M., Sbrana, A., Ferrell, B., Jafari, N., King, S., Balboni, T., Miccinesi, G., Vandenhoeck, A., Silbermann, M., Balducci, L., Yong, J., Antonuzzo, A., Falcone, A., & Ripamonti, C. I. (2019). Interprofessional spiritual care in oncology: a literature review. ESMO open, 4(1), e000465. https://doi.org/10.1136/esmoopen-2018-000465
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  • Puchalski, C. M., Vitillo, R., Hull, S. K., & Reller, N. (2014). Improving the spiritual dimension of whole person care: reaching national and international consensus. Journal of palliative medicine, 17(6), 642–656. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2014.9427
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  • Puchalski, C., Ferrell, B., Virani, R., Otis-Green, S., Baird, P., Bull, J., Chochinov, H., Handzo, G., Nelson-Becker, H., Prince-Paul, M., Pugliese, K., & Sulmasy, D. (2009). Improving the Quality of Spiritual Care as a Dimension of Palliative Care: The Report of the Consensus Conference. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 12(10), 885-904. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2009.0142
    https://www.researchgate.net
  • RSA. (2013, December 10). Brené Brown on Empathy [Video]. YouTube.
    https://www.youtube.com/
  • Spiritual Health Association (2021). What is spirituality? What is spiritual care? [Poster series] Spiritual Health Association
    https://www.spiritualhealth.org.au/resources
  • Williams, R. (2014, April 15). “I Have No Idea How You Feel”. Harvard Magazine.
    https://www.harvardmagazine.com

Course structure