This proposed study of Clergy Roles in Psychiatric Care: Elder Patients' Views requests 1 year of funding to conduct a pilot study to investigate the receptivity of older psychiatric outpatients to professional interaction between clergy and mental health care providers. The findings from this research will contribute to the development of an intervention study designed to test the impact of contact between clinicians and clergy on patient adherence to mental health treatment and clinical outcomes. Clergy are a prevalent mental health care resource in the community with particular relevance to the elderly. National surveys report that 80% of persons over 65 are members of churches or synagogues and 52% attend services weekly. Although clergy are potentially capable of improving treatment adherence by members of their congregation who receive psychiatric care, they are untapped by mental health professionals. Some studies have demonstrated willingness among clergy to collaborate with clinicians, but none has questioned patients if such contact is acceptable.
The first aim of this research is to assess the prevalence of religious involvement on the part of geriatric outpatients so as to ascertain the proportion of the population for which a study of clerical involvement would be pertinent. Another aim is to investigate the patients' views of the helpfulness of different roles that clergy could perform as participants in the patients' clinical care. The study will also explore how elderly patients' views are associated with their religious, clinical, and sociodemographic attributes. Data will be collected from 200 outpatients in an ethnically diverse geriatric psychiatry clinic. Patients will be asked to consent to a chart review and to an interview. The charts include a demographic data form, which documents a patient's religious affiliation, as well as frequency of religious practice and clergy contact. Patients will then be contacted for an interview to solicit descriptions of their own contact with clergy in response to emotional problems, and their views as to the optimum domains of interaction between clergy and clinicians. This B/START represents one preliminary step toward conduct an intervention study of clergy participation in mental health care. The future study will require the consent and cooperation of the patients. The data from this study will be able to identify, categorize and prioritize needs described by the patients themselves.
