Enhancing training in spiritual and religious competencies in mental health graduate education: Evaluation of an integrated curricular approach.

Despite practice guidelines for multiculturally competent care, including spiritual/religious diversity, most mental health graduate training programs do not formally address spiritual/religious competencies. Thus, we enhanced the Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH) course curriculum to train graduate students in foundational attitudes, knowledge, and skills for addressing clients' spirituality and/or religion (S/R). The hybrid (online and in-person) SCT-MH course curriculum was integrated into existing required graduate clinical courses (replacing 15% of a course's curriculum) and taught to 309 students by 20 instructors in 20 different graduate training programs across counseling, psychology, and social work disciplines.

Examining the outcomes and acceptability of a peer-led spiritual intervention for moral injury in a veteran service organization.

The purpose of this proof-of-concept study was to examine the outcomes and acceptability of a spiritual intervention for moral injury led by veteran peers in a Veteran Service Organization (VSO), called "Heroes to Heroes." From baseline to 1-year follow-up, 101 veterans who participated in the intervention completed the evaluation surveys at four time points assessing psychological outcomes (moral injury, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] symptoms, and life satisfaction), spiritual outcomes (spiritual struggles and spiritual transcendence), and their perceived helpfulness of the program. In addition, we conducted four focus groups with six to eight alumni to more fully understand veterans' views and experiences of the program.

Measuring and Quantifying Collateral Information in Psychiatry: Development and Preliminary Validation of the McLean Collateral Information and Clinical Actionability Scale.

Background: The review of collateral information is an essential component of patient care. Although this is standard practice, minimal research has been done to quantify collateral information collection and to understand how collateral information translates to clinical decision making. To address this, we developed and piloted a novel measure (the McLean Collateral Information and Clinical Actionability Scale [M-CICAS]) to evaluate the types and number of collateral sources viewed and the resulting actions made in a psychiatric setting.

Virtual reality and mental health in older adults: a systematic review.

Importance: Virtual reality (VR) is a promising tool with the potential to enhance care of cognitive and affective disorders in the aging population. VR has been implemented in clinical settings with adolescents and children; however, it has been less studied in the geriatric population.

Objective: The objective of this study is to determine the existing levels of evidence for VR use in clinical settings and identify areas where more evidence may guide translation of existing VR interventions for older adults.

Predictors of Patients' Responses to Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential, and Intensive Treatment (SPIRIT).

Objective: Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential, and Intensive Treatment (SPIRIT) is a flexible clinical protocol for delivering spiritually integrated group psychotherapy within acute psychiatric settings. The authors evaluated SPIRIT's feasibility by examining patients' perceptions of its benefits and clinical and spiritual predictors of observed effects associated with this intervention.

Methods: Over a 1-year period, 22 clinicians stationed on 10 clinical units provided SPIRIT to 1,443 self-referred patients with a broad range of demographic, clinical, and spiritual and religious characteristics.

Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential, and Intensive Treatment.

In this article, a clinical protocol for delivering a flexible, spiritually integrated cognitive-behavioral therapy, called spiritual psychotherapy for inpatient, residential, and intensive treatment (SPIRIT), is presented, and its implementation is described.