Department of Religion Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
J Relig Health. 2024 Dec;63(6):4257-4275. doi: 10.1007/s10943-024-02145-x. Epub 2024 Oct 1.
Across the globe, spiritual care is offered by individuals, healthcare chaplains, and humanitarian, social and related spiritual groups on account of zeal, voluntary and paid services. Sometimes, services are provided without understanding the connectivity of compassion, spiritual care, and scientific protocols. There are instances where health professionals and managers disagree with spiritual caregivers or reject spiritual services because of poor service deliveries in conflict with healthcare protocols. Against this background, this article focuses on how spiritual care services can be provided scientifically to improve service delivery. It presents leading questions to link the scientific and compassionate approach to spiritual care. These include-What is science? What is compassion? What is spiritual care? What makes compassion and spiritual care scientific? Are there tenets of compassion in religions? How are compassion, science and spiritual care linked? What are the implications of the intersections for public health and safety? Hopefully, the provided answers may improve the service delivery performance of spiritual caregivers and their collaboration with healthcare professionals, social workers, and related groups.
在全球范围内，个人、医疗传教士以及人道主义、社会和相关精神团体出于热情、志愿和付费服务提供精神关怀。有时，服务的提供是在不理解同情、精神关怀和科学协议之间的联系的情况下进行的。在某些情况下，卫生专业人员和管理人员不同意精神护理人员的意见，或者因为与医疗协议冲突的服务提供不善而拒绝精神服务。在此背景下，本文重点关注如何以科学的方式提供精神关怀服务，以提高服务提供水平。它提出了一些主导性问题，将精神关怀的科学和富有同情心的方法联系起来。这些问题包括：什么是科学？什么是同情？什么是精神关怀？是什么使同情和精神关怀具有科学性？宗教中有同情的教义吗？同情、科学和精神关怀是如何联系起来的？这些交集对公共卫生和安全有什么影响？希望提供的答案可以提高精神护理人员的服务提供绩效，并促进他们与医疗专业人员、社会工作者和相关团体的合作。
