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Opening electronically: raising spiritual awareness online
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  1. K Groves1,
  2. C Baldry2,
  3. B Smith3 and
  4. K Sumner3
  1. 1West Lancs, Southport & Formby Palliative Care Services
  2. 2Queenscourt Hospice
  3. 3Edge Hill University

Abstract

A 1 day interactive course was developed to increase staff conifdence in their ability to recognise and meet spiritual and religious needs of patients and families, as part of a cancer network wide plan for spiritual support education following a network wide audit suggesting that health professionals felt undereducated in this area of assessment and support. NICE guidance (2004) suggests that staff should be able to assess the spiritual and religious needs of patients and either provide or make provision for their spiritual and religious care.

However releasing staff for education is becoming increasingly difficult and short courses may not provide sufficient time for reflection.

Collaboration between a university technology department and a cancer network resulted in the conversion of an interactive, face to face, spiritual awareness raising course of four sessions into an online course based on a social constructivist learning.

The poster shows how the various elements of the course were converted into online formats to meet all learning styles and preferences to promote group interaction, reflection and the development of a community of practice who could successfully reflect together.

The results of the analysis of the pilot course show how participants used the course to meet their needs and their qualitative evaluation of its value.

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