The need and appropriateness of measurement and research in chaplaincy: its criticalness for patient care and chaplain department survival post 1987.

To bring their discipline, Health Care in the Spiritual Dimension, up to late 20th/early 21st century clinical science standards, chaplaincy departments must immediately start to utilize objective instruments for clinical care and for management reporting. This is critical not only for quality of patient care but also for longterm survival of chaplain departments. This paper is a major survey of the best of the numerous, recently developed, spiritual dimension instruments. Also included are examples of how clinical-research findings from a recent hospital chaplaincy study, can be interpreted to assist local chaplaincy department programs and budgets. Such measurement, when properly interpreted, also can play a key role in the future of more adequate training of spiritual health providers by theological professional schools.