The Urgency of Spiritual Care: COVID-19 and the Critical Need for Whole-Person Palliation.
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
7-3-2020
Journal
Journal of pain and symptom management
DOI
10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.06.034
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis has amplified the importance of palliative care to countless patients suffering with and dying from this disease, as well as to their families, communities, and the worldwide cadre of overburdened health care workers. Particularly urgent is the need for spiritual care specialists and generalists to address spiritual suffering given the degree of isolation, loneliness, and vulnerability caused by this pandemic. Although spiritual care has long been recognized as one of the domains of quality palliative care, it is often not fully integrated into practice. All disciplines are ultimately responsible for ensuring that spiritual care is prioritized to improve quality of life and the experience of patients and families facing spiritual emergencies amid the complex life-and-death scenarios inherent to coronavirus disease 2019. Although the pandemic has revealed serious fault lines in many health care domains, it has also underscored the need to recommit to spiritual care as an essential component of whole-person palliative care.
APA Citation
Ferrell, B., Handzo, G., Picchi, T., Puchalski, C., & Rosa, W. (2020). The Urgency of Spiritual Care: COVID-19 and the Critical Need for Whole-Person Palliation.. Journal of pain and symptom management, (). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.06.034
Peer Reviewed
1
Open Access
1
Comments
This is an open access PubMed Central article.