• Mieke Vermandere, Franca Warmenhoven, Evie Van Severen, Jan De Lepeleire, and Bert Aertgeerts.
• Department of General Practice, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium mieke.vermandere@med.kuleuven.be.
• Palliat Med. 2016 Apr 1; 30 (4): 338-50.

BackgroundMany health-care providers experience barriers to addressing spiritual needs, such as not having the right vocabulary. The ars moriendi model might be a feasible tool for spiritual history taking in palliative care.AimTo investigate the effect of a structured spiritual history taking on the spiritual well-being of palliative patients in home care.DesignCluster randomized controlled trial, conducted between February and October 2013.Patients And MethodsRegistered nurses and general practitioners approached eligible patients with an incurable, life-threatening disease for study participation. Health-care providers allocated to the intervention arm of the study took a spiritual history on the basis of the ars moriendi model. Health-care providers in the control arm provided care as usual. Patient-reported outcomes on spiritual well-being, quality of life, pain, and patient-provider trust were assessed at two points in time.ResultsA total of 245 health-care providers participated in the study (204 nurses and 41 physicians). In all, 49 patient-provider dyads completed the entire study protocol. The median age of the patients was 75 years (range: 41-95 years), and 55% of the patients were female. There were no significant differences at any point in time in the scores on spiritual well-being, quality of life, pain, or patient-provider trust between the intervention and the control group.ConclusionThis cluster randomized controlled trial showed no demonstrable effect of spiritual history taking on patient scores for spiritual well-being, quality of life, health-care relationship trust, or pain. Further research is needed to develop instruments that accurately assess the effectiveness of spiritual interventions in palliative care populations.© The Author(s) 2015.

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