• Family practice · Mar 2023

    Experiences of German health care professionals with spiritual history taking in primary care: a mixed-methods process evaluation of the HoPES3 intervention.

    • Carolin Huperz, Noemi Sturm, Eckhard Frick, Ruth Mächler, Regina Stolz, Friederike Schalhorn, Jan Valentini, Stefanie Joos, and Cornelia Straßner.
    • Institute for General Practice and Palliative Care, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
    • Fam Pract. 2023 Mar 28; 40 (2): 369376369-376.

    BackgroundSpiritual needs gain importance in old age but are often ignored in health care. Within the 'Holistic care program for elderly patients to integrate spiritual needs, social activity and self-care into disease management in primary care (HoPES3)' a complex intervention was evaluated in a cluster-randomized trial. The aim of this study was to explore the acceptability, feasibility, benefits, and harms of a spiritual history taken by general practitioners (GPs) as part of the complex intervention.MethodsIn this mixed-methods study telephone interviews with 11 German GPs and 12 medical assistants (MAs) of the HoPES3 intervention group were conducted and analysed using a content-analytical approach. Furthermore, GPs were asked to complete a questionnaire after each spiritual history. One hundred and forty-one questionnaires from 14 GPs were analysed descriptively.ResultsGPs considered the spiritual history very/quite helpful for the patient in 27% (n= 38) and very/quite stressful in 2% (n = 3) of the cases. Interviews indicated that GPs found discussing spiritual history easier than anticipated. GPs and MAs saw a difficulty in that many patients associated spirituality with religion or church and reacted with surprise or rejection. Benefits for patients were seen in the opportunity to talk about non-medical topics, and increased awareness of their own resources. Benefits for GPs mainly related to information gain and an intensified patient-physician relationship.ConclusionsA spiritual history in general practice has the potential to reveal important information about patients' lives and to improve the patient-physician relationship. Implementation barriers identified in this study have to be considered and addressed.© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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