An evidence-based program for enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration to promote spiritual care in an adolescent psychiatric residential facility

Abstract

Spirituality is an essential component of any healthcare assessment and plan, yet it is not clear how to best integrate spirituality in an interprofessional practice. Bronstein’s Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration served as a guide to address this problem and to design a quality improvement project for and provision of spiritual care to adolescents was facilitated in a local residential psychiatric facility. Professional staff members of the Interprofessional treatment teams (IPTT) were invited to participate in educational programming that was based on textbook reviews, interviews with a nursing curriculum designer and residential chaplain, and surveys of IPTT member baseline knowledge of the relationship between spirituality and mental health.  Eighteen participants took both the pre-test and post-test survey. A two-tailed Wilcoxon signed ranks test was run on the scores of those who took both tests, revealing there was a significant difference between the scores (p = .002), indicating an increase in general knowledge regarding matters of spirituality and its relationship to mental health. Finally, a process and structural evaluation of the discussion meetings revealed content of these meetings was generally helpful and positively contributed to the knowledge and skillsets of interprofessional treatment team members in recognizing spiritual distress and meeting spiritual needs. The role of pastoral care was affirmed and even celebrated by members of the interprofessional treatment team.