Spiritual Care Interventions for Adult Patients in Intensive Care Units: A Scoping Review Protocol

Caring for patients in intensive care units (ICUs) requires healthcare workers to recognize the importance of a spiritual care approach in these settings. Moving toward a holistic and patient-centered care model that incorporates spiritual care is essential for enhancing patients' healing process. The disease-centered approach of ICU and the perceived deficit of spiritual care highlight the need to add knowledge on integrating spiritual care interventions into daily ICU practices. The aim of this scoping review will be to develop a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of spiritual care interventions for adult patients in ICU according to JBI methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. The inclusion criteria will be informed by the types of participants, concept and context, and types of evidence sources. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies, editorials, opinion papers and gray literature will be included. Databases such as PubMed (National Library of Medicine), CINAHL, Academic Search Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, APA PsycINFO, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (via EBSCOhost), Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection will be searched. No date limit will be set. Titles and abstracts that meet the inclusion criteria, full texts of eligible studies and reference lists of all selected sources will be screened by 2 independent reviewers. Data will be extracted using customized tools, presented in diagrammatic or tabular format and summarized in a final narrative synthesis report. This research represents the first effort to develop a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of spiritual care interventions exclusively targeting adult patients in ICU settings. The findings will offer a thorough review of these interventions, including their main attributes, providers, resources, associated outcomes and assessment tools. Consequently, this knowledge can enhance the spiritual dimension of patient-centered care in the ICU, thereby promoting a shift from the traditional biomedical model to a more holistic perspective and establishing a new standard in critical care.