Literature Which Supports the Spiritual Dimension of Whole Person Healthcare

Outcome for Graduates. General Medical Practice. 2018
“Newly qualified doctors must be able to work collaboratively with patients, their relatives, carers or other advocates to make clinical judgements and decisions based on a holistic assessment of the patient and their needs, priorities and concerns, and appreciating the importance of the links between pathophysiological, psychological, spiritual, religious, social and cultural factors for each individual.”

Good Medical Practice. General Medical Practice. 2024
“In providing clinical care you must: adequately assess a patient’s condition(s), taking account of their history, including i. symptoms ii. relevant psychological, spiritual, social, economic, and cultural factors iii. the patient’s views, needs, and values”

The RCGP Curriculum. Being a General Practitioner. 2025
“Demonstrating the holistic mindset of a generalist medical practitioner. Learning outcomes:
1. Appreciate that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity.
2. Recognise that the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being, without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition, and your role to facilitate this.
3. Enquire routinely into the psychosocial, cultural, and socio-economic aspects of the patient’s problem in addition to physical aspects, integrating this information to form a non-judgemental holistic view.
4. Interpret each patient’s personal story in their unique context with compassion, considering the effects of additional factors that are known to influence an individual’s health needs, including educational, occupational, environmental, cultural, spiritual and other existential factors.
5. Develop the ability to switch from diagnostic and curative approaches to supportive and palliative approaches, as appropriate for the patient’s needs.
6. Integrate a diverse range of evidence-based approaches into treatment plans, according to patient preferences and circumstances, incorporating both conventional and complementary approaches where appropriate.”

Spiritual factors include the terms: spirituality, spiritual dimension, spiritual belief, spiritual health, spiritual wellbeing, spiritual needs, spiritual distress, spiritual pain and spiritual care

WHOQOL and spirituality, religiousness and personal beliefs: report on WHO consultation. 1998. WHO.
“Until recently the health professions have largely followed a medical model, which seeks to treat patients by focussing on medicines and surgery and gives less importance to beliefs and to faith. This reductionism or mechanistic view of patients as being only a material body is no longer satisfactory. Patients and physicians have begun to realise the value of elements such as faith, hope and compassion in the healing process. The value of such ‘spiritual’ elements in health and quality of life has led to research in this field in an attempt to move towards a more holistic view of health that includes a non-material dimension, emphasising the seamless connections between mind and body.”

Resolution 30. 2024. American Medical Association.
“(1) Our AMA recognizes the importance of individual patient spirituality and its impact on health and encourages patient access to spiritual care services.
(2) Our AMA encourages the availability of education about spiritual health, defined as meaning, purpose, and connectedness, in curricula in medical school, graduate medical education, and continuing physician professional development as an integral part of whole person care”

Improving Supportive and Palliative Care for Adults with Cancer. Cancer service guideline (retired). 2004. National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
“Beliefs can be religious, philosophical or broadly spiritual in nature.  Formal religion is a means of expressing an underlying spirituality, but spiritual belief, concerned with the search for the existential or ultimate meaning in life, is a broader concept and may not always be expressed in a religious way.  It usually includes reference to a power other than self, often described as ‘God’, a ‘higher power’, or ‘forces of nature’. This power is generally seen to help a person to transcend immediate experience and to re-establish hope.”

Improving the Spiritual Dimension of Whole Person Care: Reaching National and International Consensus. Puchalski CM, et al. 2014. J Palliat Med. 1;17(6):642–656. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2014.9427
“Spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred.”

Spiritual care in palliative care: Working towards an EAPC Task Force. Nolan S, et al. 2011. Eur J Palliat Care 2011;18:86–89
The European Association of Palliative Care. Towards a European-appropriate definition of spirituality: “Spirituality is the dynamic dimension of human life that relates to the way persons (individual and community) experience, express and/or seek meaning, purpose and transcendence, and the way they connect to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, to the significant, and/or the sacred.”

Spiritual Care – A resource guide. Naryanasamy A. 1991. Quay Publishing.
“Spiritual needs are the need to give and receive love; the need to be understood; the need to be valued as a human being; the need for forgiveness, hope and trust; the need to explore beliefs and values; the need to express feelings honestly; the need to express faith or belief; the need to find meaning and purpose in life.”

Spiritual care needs. 2025. NHS inform (Scotland)
“Spiritual needs are different for everyone. They can change over time as you face new challenges in life or changes in your health. Spiritual care needs can include the need: to give and receive love; to be understood; to be valued as a human being; for forgiveness and trust; to explore beliefs and values; to find meaning, purpose and hope. If you experience illness or loss, you may have questions linked to meaning, purpose or hope. Many people welcome spiritual care when they have a serious illness, or their health is changing or getting worse.”

In search of self and something bigger: A spiritual health exploration. 2024. McKinsey Health Institute.
A global “survey of 41,000 people finds that spiritual health matters to many, regardless of age, country, or religious beliefs.”
“Spiritual health encompasses having meaning in one’s life, a sense of connection to something larger than oneself, and a sense of purpose. Finding this meaning is associated with strong mental, social, and physical health.”

Spiritual distress. 2016. The Palliative Care Project, a partnership between Community Care of Brooklyn and the MJHS Institute for Innovation in Palliative Care.
“Spiritual pain or distress …. occurs when a person is unable to find sources of meaning, hope, love, peace, comfort, strength, or connection in life.”

Guidance on Cancer Services. Improving Supportive and Palliative Care for Adults with Cancer. Spiritual Support Services. National Institute for Clinical Excellence. March 2004
Ensure that spiritual care is offered as an integral part of an holistic approach to health, encompassing psychological, spiritual, social and emotional care, and within the framework of the patient’s beliefs or philosophy of life.

Spiritual Care Matters. An introductory resource for all NHS Scotland Staff 2021
“Spiritual care is that care which recognises and responds to basic human needs and core beliefs when faced with trauma, ill health or sadness and can include the need for meaning-making, for self-worth, to express oneself honestly, for particular faith or belief group support, perhaps for rites or prayer or sacrament, or simply for a sensitive listener. Spiritual care begins with compassion in all of our human contacts, and especially in health care and moves in whatever direction need requires.”

Discovering meaning, purpose and hope through person-centred well-being and spiritual care: framework. 2023. Scottish Government.
“The framework reflects the considerable developments resulting from the increased professionalism in spiritual care over the last twenty years. It firmly establishes the role of spiritual care as an integral part of health and social care provision.”

Handbook of Religion and Health. Koenig H. K. et al. 2001. Oxford University Press.
A comprehensive analysis of over 1,200 studies and 400 reviews of empirical research found statistically significant benefits of spiritual care in terms of prevention of ill‑health, aiding recovery, and encouraging equanimity.

Religion, spirituality, and health: The research and clinical implications. Koenig H. G. 2012. International Scholarly Research Notices.
This paper provides a concise but comprehensive review of research on religion and spirituality (R/S) and both mental and physical health. It is based on a systematic review of original quantitative research published between 1872 and 2010, including a few seminal articles published since 2010.

What do doctors understand by spiritual health? A survey of UK general practitioners. Whitehead O. et al. 2021. BMJ Open.
Understanding of spiritual health fitted into three themes: self‑actualisation and meaning, transcendence and relationships beyond the self, and expressions of spirituality. Views ranged from scepticism to enthusiasm about the role of spirituality in healthcare.

What GPs mean by “spirituality” and how they apply this concept with patients: a qualitative study. Appleby A. et al. 2018. BJGP Open 2(2):bjgpopen18X101469.
GPs have varying views on what spirituality is, shaped partly by personal beliefs and experiences. These differences lead to considerable variation in the delivery of spiritual care.

Do patients want doctors to talk about spirituality? A systematic literature review. Best M. et al. 2015. Patient Educ Couns. 98(11):1320–8.
While most patients express interest in discussing spirituality in medical consultations, there is a mismatch between what patients consider spiritual discussion and what doctors perceive it to be.

Do chronic pain patients wish spiritual aspects to be integrated in their medical treatment? A cross‑sectional study of multiple facilities. Hasenfratz K. et al. 2021. Front. Psychiatry 12:685158.
Most chronic pain patients wish spiritual aspects to be considered in their treatment. Their higher levels of spiritual resources highlight the value of integrating spirituality into patient‑centred, resource‑oriented care.

Spirituality, religion, and health: An emerging research field. Miller W. R., Thoresen C. E., 2003 American Psychologist 58(1):24–35.
This introduction reviews the emerging field of spirituality and health, addressing definitions, statistical approaches, and criteria for evaluating evidence. It highlights spirituality and health as a frontier area of high public interest.

Why spirituality matters in medicine. VanderWeele T. J. 2022. Psychology Today.
Spiritual or religious community is an important health resource for many people. Many patients want their spirituality considered in medical care, yet many clinicians lack training. A brief spiritual history can help identify patient needs.

Spirituality in serious illness and health. Balboni T. A. et al. 2022. JAMA 328(2):184–197.
Key implications include: (1) incorporating evidence‑based approaches linking spiritual community with improved outcomes; (2) increasing clinician awareness of protective health associations; and (3) recognising spirituality as a social factor in health research and practice.

Science and spirituality in primary care: Is there common ground? Appleby A. 2025. BJGP Life.
Many general practitioners consider spirituality to be relevant to their patients’ health and important to primary care. However, research shows that a number of GPs worry that addressing this issue is unscientific. Alongside this, an increasing amount of research points to links and associations between spirituality and health. An important question is whether it is possible to think about spirituality and science in a way that does justice to both concepts.

End of life care for adults: service delivery. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). 2019. NICE Guideline [NG142].
This guideline covers organizing and delivering end-of-life care services to ensure adults approaching the end of life, and their families, have access to coordinated, high-quality, and holistic support across all healthcare settings.

End of life care for infants, children and young people with life-limiting conditions: planning and management. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). 2016 (Updated 2019). NICE Guideline [NG61].
This document outlines best practices for planning and managing clinical end-of-life care for infants, children, and young people, emphasizing a proactive care-planning approach starting from the initial point of diagnosis.

Care of dying adults in the last days of life. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). 2015. NICE Guideline [NG31].
This clinical guideline focuses on the immediate care of adults considered to be in their final days of life, offering recommendations on symptom relief, hydration, sensitive communication, and shared decision-making.

Spiritual needs assessment: the LOADS SHARED mnemonic. Macdonald G. 2019. British Journal of General Practice.
This article introduces an inductive, person-centered assessment framework using the “LOADS SHARED” mnemonic to help general practitioners pick up on and interpret subtle verbal or non-verbal spiritual cues during regular consultations.

Primary care chaplaincy: an intervention for complex presentation. Macdonald G. 2021. Primary Health Care Research & Development (PMC).
A retrospective study examining the characteristics of patients accessing primary care chaplaincy, highlighting how chaplain interventions improve patient well-being and reduce future GP appointment.

The efficacy of primary care chaplaincy compared with antidepressants: a retrospective study comparing chaplaincy with antidepressants. Macdonald G. 2017. Primary Health Care Research & Development (Cambridge Core).
A retrospective observational study evaluating the effectiveness of primary care chaplaincy as a standalone intervention, showing it yields well-being improvements comparable to antidepressant treatment.

Developing and implementing spiritual screening in healthcare: six successful models. Fitchett G, et al. 2024. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy.
This article analyzes six distinct institutional frameworks that successfully integrated spiritual screening into routine medical workflows, providing practical blueprints for identifying patient spiritual distress across diverse healthcare settings.

The spiritual distress assessment tool: an instrument to assess spiritual distress in hospitalised elderly persons. Monod S. et al. 2010. BMC Geriatrics (PMC).
This paper details the development and clinical validation of the Spiritual Distress Assessment Tool (SDAT), a structured instrument designed to help clinicians systematically identify and address spiritual distress in hospitalized older adults.

The Contribution of Chaplaincy to Primary and Community Care: A Semi-Structured Interview Study With Clients. Damen A. et al. 2025. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health.
Based on semi-structured interviews, this study explores patient perspectives on community-based chaplaincy, demonstrating how these sessions help individuals process existential grief and find personal meaning during major life disruptions.

Goals and outcomes of chaplaincy in varying outpatient, primary, and community care contexts. Damen A. et al. 2025. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy.
This paper maps out the operational goals and clinical outcomes of spiritual care provided outside traditional hospital settings, providing a standardized framework for evaluating chaplaincy’s effectiveness in community networks.

What medical students learn from shadowing chaplains. McCarthy M. et al. 2026. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy.
This article assesses how medical students benefit from shadowing healthcare chaplains, highlighting significant improvements in the students’ professional empathy, active listening, and capacity for holistic patient care.

Hope in providing spiritual care together: a qualitative study among chronically ill patients, chaplains, general practitioners and nurses. van Veluw M. et al. 2026. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy.
A qualitative study examining the collaborative care network surrounding chronically ill individuals, revealing how shared interdisciplinary efforts between GPs, nurses, and chaplains generate profound hope and resilience for patients.

Conceptualizing spiritual care in the U.S. through chaplain activities in research: a scoping review sub-analysis. White K. B. et al. 2026. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy.
This scoping review sub-analysis categorizes and evaluates the practical interventions used by chaplains in American healthcare literature, offering an insight into what spiritual care looks like in practice.