The impact of religious and spiritual care on parents or caregivers in pediatrics: a scoping review.

Religious and spiritual care has been overlooked by studies evaluating its impact on caregivers of patients admitted to pediatric hospitals. This scoping review examines the literature on the impact of spiritual and religious care on parents or guardians of children admitted to high acuity pediatric...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 216 - 229
Main Authors: Leavitt-Alcántara, Salvador, Summers, Samantha
Format: review tables/charts Journal Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jul-Sep2026
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Religious and spiritual care has been overlooked by studies evaluating its impact on caregivers of patients admitted to pediatric hospitals. This scoping review examines the literature on the impact of spiritual and religious care on parents or guardians of children admitted to high acuity pediatric hospital units. Utilizing Arksey & O'Malley's framework for conducting scoping reviews, we included studies from within the last ten years written in English or Spanish in pediatric populations that reported role, effects, or impact of religious and spiritual care. Results reveal themes of positive impact of spiritual or religious care on several components of parents/caregivers' in the areas of emotional coping, grief and bereavement, positive parental perception of the impact of chaplains in high acuity settings, and outside spiritual/religious guidance and support during the medical decision-making process. More studies are needed to address the paucity of data on this topic with caregivers of pediatric patients.