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Feasibility and Acceptability of a Telephone-Based Chaplaincy Intervention to Decrease Parental Spiritual Struggle

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Abstract

Spiritual struggles (SSs) are distressing spiritual thoughts associated with poorer health outcomes. This study’s purpose was to test feasibility, acceptability, and fidelity of an intervention to decrease SS of parents of children with CF. Parents screening positive for SS were enrolled and were randomized to intervention or attention-control condition. Intervention focused on intra-, inter-, and divine SS. Mixed linear modeling examined between-group differences. We present analyses of N = 23, and participants all showed decreased levels of SS. Acceptability was high; feasibility was higher in the intervention arm. GuideSS_CF is acceptable and feasible and warrants development as a potentially efficacious intervention.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the partial funding from the institution’s Research Innovation and Progress Award, the Division of Pulmonary Medicine and the Department of Pastoral Care.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Rhonda Szczesniak & Daniel H. Grossoehme

  2. Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Rhonda Szczesniak

  3. Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Avenue MLC2021, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA

    Katrina Lewis, Teresa Pestian & Daniel H. Grossoehme

  4. Department of Pastoral Care, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    John Betz, Amy Simpson Bennethum, Judith McBride & Daniel H. Grossoehme

Authors
  1. John Betz
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  2. Rhonda Szczesniak
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  3. Katrina Lewis
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  4. Teresa Pestian
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  5. Amy Simpson Bennethum
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  6. Judith McBride
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  7. Daniel H. Grossoehme
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Correspondence to Daniel H. Grossoehme.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Betz, J., Szczesniak, R., Lewis, K. et al. Feasibility and Acceptability of a Telephone-Based Chaplaincy Intervention to Decrease Parental Spiritual Struggle. J Relig Health 58, 2065–2085 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00921-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00921-8

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