Date of Award

12-19-2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Health Professions Education

First Advisor

Dr Muhammad Shahid Shamim

Second Advisor

Dr Lubna Baig

Third Advisor

Dr Syed Moin Ali

Department

Community Health Sciences

Abstract

Background: Spiritual health is one the important dimensions of health which has been recently recognized for its role in producing better health outcomes. Although the needs of the patients are widely studied in literature globally as well as locally the doctors are not well equipped to provide this care to the patients. The Curriculum in medicine is focused on teaching physical symptoms and diseases whereas the needs of the patients are much more than that. Local data are scarce regarding the teaching of Spiritual health competence. This study aimed to explore the need to teach Spiritual health to postgraduate students of Indus Hospital and Health Network.
Methods: We conducted an Exploratory Descriptive study from May 2024 to November 2024 after approval from ERC at AKU and IRB at IHHN using a purposive sampling method. Postgraduate students from core disciplines and faculty with more than 5 years of teaching experience were enrolled in the study after written consent. A semi-structured interview guide with introductory and probing questions was developed for both groups and was also reviewed by the supervisor. A total of four focus group discussions (FGD) with a total of 18 students and four in-depth interviews with four faculty members were conducted. The duration of each lasted for almost 30-45 minutes. Inductive analysis was done to derive codes and themes.
Results: The study revealed the importance of teaching Spiritual Health competence to students at all stages. The study also identified that the faculty themselves also need to be trained to teach their students. A total of five themes emerged from the data which included, understanding spirituality, the Spiritual needs of the patients and ways to address them, the capability of delivering spiritual care, need for teaching and interventions in the curriculum.
Conclusion: This study highlights the need to include interventions to train postgraduate students for providing Spiritual Health care to the patients since they have never been formally trained for it. The study found that, although students recognize the importance of spiritual care and express interest in it, they are generally not well-prepared in this area. By integrating organized spiritual care training, the postgraduate programs can better prepare students to deliver holistic, patient[1]centered care.

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