Development and Testing of the Spiritual First Aid Curriculum for Training Disaster Care Providers: An Initial Pilot Effectiveness Study

Spiritual first aid (SFA) trains disaster spiritual and emotional care providers to choose appropriate ways of responding to those who have experienced traumatic losses. The purpose of this study was to pilot a vignette-based strategy as a proof of concept for evaluating the effectiveness of SFA...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Spirituality in clinical practice (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2024-09, Vol.11 (3), p.315-327
Main Authors: McLaughlin, Aaron T., Davis, Don E., Shannonhouse, Laura R., Cowart, Hannah M., Hsu, Li-Cih, Gazaway, Sarah, Cauble, Madalyn, McElroy-Heltzel, Stacey E., Hook, Joshua N., Van Tongeren, Daryl R., Davis, Edward B., Lacey, Ethan K., Aten, Jamie D., Annan, Kent
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Curriculum
Curriculum Development
Disaster Response
Female
Human
Male
Psychological First Aid
Spirituality
Test Construction
Training
Trauma
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Summary:Spiritual first aid (SFA) trains disaster spiritual and emotional care providers to choose appropriate ways of responding to those who have experienced traumatic losses. The purpose of this study was to pilot a vignette-based strategy as a proof of concept for evaluating the effectiveness of SFA's curriculum. Participants were 61 disaster spiritual and emotional care providers who completed an 8-hr SFA training course that was adapted for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediately before and after the course, they answered vignette-style items of disaster scenarios across five domains of need targeted by SFA's curriculum: belongingness (social), livelihood (physical), emotional health (psychological), spiritual well-being (existential), and safety. SFA training attendees evidenced a modest increase in the percentage of correct answers between pretest (64.22%) and posttest (75.13%, p < .001; Cohen's d = .16) scores. They also chose more direct (pretest = 55.58%, posttest = 72.43%, p = .005; Cohen's d = .45) and less indirect (pretest = 21.68%, posttest = 10.50%, p < .001; Cohen's d = .40) responses in assessing safety needs upon completing the training. This study provides initial evidence, through a previously untested vignette-based strategy, of SFA's effectiveness in training disaster care providers to choose practical and humble ways of providing spiritual and emotional care to those suffering from traumatic losses.
ISSN:2326-4500
2326-4519
DOI:10.1037/scp0000361