Spiritual care in Portuguese palliative care settings: a cross-sectional study

Spirituality is a core dimension of palliative care. However, Portuguese palliative care teams do not have many spiritual care resources.

Cross-sectional and observational survey studies were used to characterise spiritual care resources in Portuguese palliative care teams based on a non-probabilistic convenience sampling. An electronic questionnaire was used for data collection.

A total of 150 responses were obtained. In 68.7% of the teams, there was no specific professional dedicated to spiritual care, although 68% of the participants considered that a spiritual assessment or intervention was a part of their role; 47.3% considered that their colleagues were reasonably prepared to develop a spiritual assessment or follow-up; for a patient, and 54.7% were considered to be reasonably involved. However, 50.0% did not consider themseleves to be competent at providing spiritual care. Most referred to not using any specific assessment tool or document (67.3%); 49.3% dedicated less than 10% of their time to specific education or training about spirituality.

This study involved different professionals from multidisciplinary teams. Most recognised the importance of attending to the patient's spirituality and spiritual care. Results suggest that there is a need for specific training, resources and techniques to meet a patient's spiritual care needs at the end of life. This need may be similar in all teams, not just palliative care teams, to facilitate comparing indicators and promote the implementation of holistic care in palliative care.