The Quebec Model of Recording Spiritual Care: Concepts and Guidelines

Abstract

Over the past decade or so, the quality of the evaluation note written by a spiritual care provider has been a major issue in debates about accountability and the quality of interdisciplinary collaboration. This article advocates the adoption of our two models of notes: ‘the note following a meeting with a user’, generally used in acute care, and ‘the note following a meeting with a relative’, generally used in long-term care, in cases where a patient can no longer express himself or herself. These two charting models were developed on the basis of the RESS (‘Markers for Spiritual Care Assessment’) assessment tool recently developed at the Centre Spiritualitésanté de la Capitale-Nationale (CSsanté), and their usefulness and applicability were assessed in a research study. The note models presented in this article are inspired by the vision of spirituality that underlies our work accompanying patients and informed the development of the RESS. We found that the clinical benefits of streamlining an evaluation and note-writing model are a major step forward in a profession that has been rapidly evolving in Quebec in recent years.