ArticleCHEST critical care2025
A Descriptive Qualitative Study of Religion and Spirituality's Role in Critical Illness Decision-Making Among Black and White Family Caregivers.
Article in CHEST critical care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Health System Policies Following State Abortion Restrictions in the US.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Black Surrogate Decision-Makers' Perspectives on the American Thoracic Society and Society for Critical Care Medicine Statement on Shared Decision-Making in ICUs.CHEST critical care · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSpiritual beliefs and spiritual support from clinicians can affect medical decision-making and coping during times of serious illness. RESEARCH QUESTION: How do religion and spirituality affect the critical illness experience of Black and White family caregivers of patients who are critically ill? STUDY DESIGN AND
methodsTwenty-one semistructured interviews were conducted with Black and White family caregivers of patients admitted to ICUs in a southeastern United States health system between January 3, 2023, and May 11, 2023. Eligible family caregivers either reported unmet spiritual needs or a high degree of importance of spirituality in their lives. Participants were asked how spirituality affected medical decision-making and coping while their loved ones were seriously ill. Coders were masked to participant race during thematic analysis.
resultsOf 21 family caregivers, 9 caregivers (42.9%) were Black and 12 caregivers (57.1%) were White. Black and White family caregivers generally were middle-aged (mean [SD]: 50.6 [13.6] years and 61.7 [10.7] years, respectively) and female (n = 7 [77.8%] and n = 9 [75.0%], respectively). We observed that clinicians showed less engagement about spirituality with Black compared with White family caregivers in this sample. Black family caregivers felt more comfortable discussing their spirituality with members of their community, such as pastors or friends. A common belief among all family caregivers in this sample was that God, rather than the medical team, was in control of their loved one's outcome. This was accompanied by a shared desire for accessible spiritual spaces in the ICU and proactive clinician engagement in their spirituality.
interpretationAlthough spirituality served as an important coping mechanism for all family caregivers in this sample, racial differences in spiritual support offered to family caregivers were identified. Ensuring that multidisciplinary critical care teams are prepared to deliver culturally competent spiritual care is a priority.
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