Spiritual care, pastoral care, and chaplains: trends in the health care literature

This study analyzes trends in the health care literature based on electronic searches of MEDLINE between the years 1980 and 2006. The search terms used were "spiritual care," "pastoral care," and "chaplain.*" The results document an expected surge in the rate of English-language journal articles about spiritual care beginning in the mid 1990s. Although the rate of articles about pastoral care was several times higher than that for spiritual care over much of the study period, there was a steady decline in articles about pastoral care during the past 10 years. These two trends produced a convergence in the rates, so by 2006 the rate of published articles on pastoral care (21.1 per 100,000) was less than twice as high as that on spiritual care (13.3 per 100,000). The rate of articles about chaplains rose moderately but significantly from 9.6 per 100,000 in the years 1980-1982 to 12.2 per 100,000 in the years 2004-2006. Increasing interest in spiritual care was evident in nursing, mental health, and general health care journals, being most pronounced in nursing. Declining interest in pastoral care was also most pronounced in nursing. This article discusses some implications of and responses to these trends.