What do chaplains really do? I. Visitation in the New York Chaplaincy Study.

The current study presents findings from the New York Chaplaincy Study about chaplain visits with patients and their families in 13 healthcare institutions in the Greater New York City area during 1994-1996. It documents the distribution of 34,279 clinical visits by religious affiliation, population served (patients, family and friends), and type of healthcare setting (acute care and non-acute care), and analyzes the number and duration of visits with patients by their medical status. Chaplains in acute settings tended to make less frequent but longer visits with patients than chaplains in non-acute settings.

Spiritual needs: Gender differences among professional spiritual care providers.

The current study explored gender differences regarding spirituality by comparing the relative frequency with which male (n = 85) and female (n = 103) professional chaplains experience various facets of the spiritual experience. The women in the sample reported experiencing five of the seven spiritual constructs examined significantly more often than men, including the need for (1) belonging, (2) meaning, (3) hope, (4) beauty, and (5) acceptance of death. No significant gender differences were found for spiritual needs related to morality concerns or religious practices.

Chaplains and quality improvement: can we make our case by improving our care?

To date, the field of health care chaplaincy has little information about what constitutes "quality spiritual care. "A qualitative study of four focus groups in New York, Illinois, Arizona, and California was conducted to gather preliminary information about how health care chaplains' experience and understand "quality" and "quality improvement" in spiritual care. The study revealed that many chaplains feel a tension inherent in the task of measuring spiritual care services; how does one evaluate interactions that may seem ineffable? The study also enumerated chaplains' creative efforts, often shaped by institutional contexts and cultures, to address these difficulties in measuring spiritual services.