Codes of Ethics as Support for Quality Spiritual Care Relationships in Healthcare Settings: Fundamental Reflections and Practical Guidelines

This project consists in fundamental reflections and practical guidelines which contribute to the academic research on the development of codes of ethics for spiritual care professionals in the healthcare sector, and which support spiritual care organizations in their writing or revising of a code of ethics. The general research objective is to contribute to the development of codes of ethics which are profession-specific and effective in contributing to quality spiritual care relationships with patients. There are six concrete research objectives. A first objective is to select a workable amount of representative codes of ethics for spiritual care professionals in healthcare settings. A second objective is to engage with the criticisms concerning the effectiveness of ethical codes. A third objective is to explore a conceptualization of power which is less related to the doing and more to the being of spiritual care professionals. A fourth concrete research objective is to write a guideline on the integration of a "profession of faith"-section within codes of ethics. A fifth objective is to understand which topics of concern should minimally be focused on within this research and by spiritual care organizations. A sixth objective is to write guidelines on topics of concern which yield to profession-specific and effective code sections. The research is based on a literature study and on a systematic comparative and evaluative research of the selected codes of ethics.

Publication year:2020

Accessibility:Closed