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 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.