Psychological, Neurological and Immunological Changes Following a Meeting With a Chaplain Coupled With Biblical Readings (HEALING)

Somogy Megyei Kaposi Mór Teaching Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hospitalism

Treatments: Behavioral: Meeting with a Chaplain coupled with Biblical Readings

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04112121

HEALING STUDY IG/3355/2013

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of the "HEALING" " (Hospital-based Ecumenical And Linguistic Immuno-NeuroloGic) Study was to examine immunological and neurological changes in hospitalized participants after meeting a chaplain and Biblical listenings, in order to evaluate whether these meetings affect the course of the disease.

Full description

The authors pre-screened hospitalized participants to find those who were the most in need of an intervention by a chaplain. A passage from the Bible was read to the participants during a meeting with the chaplain at the bedside, or in the chapel of the hospital. No meeting occurred in the randomized control group, which was compiled in a way to get a group of participants with an approximatively similar pattern of diagnoses and treatment days than the intervention groups. The pace of enrollment was deliberately slow in order to assure the authenticity of the visits ("slow science"). Blood samples were taken 30 minutes prior, and 60 minutes after the meeting to measure White Blood Cell (WBC)-, lymphocyte counts, interferon gamma (IFN-γ)-, immunoglobulin M (IgM)-, immunoglobulin A (IgA)-, immunoglobulin G (IgG)-, and complement C3 levels. A subgroup of the visited participants was subjected to functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), where they were played an audiotape of readings of the same passage from the Bible. Associative tests, paired-samples t-test, network analysis was performed to search for any correlation between psychological and immunological parameters, completed with Statistical Parametric Mapping to search for correlations of the above with neurological parameters.

Enrollment: 57 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• adult age (>18 years)
• the condition of being hospitalized
• the ability for verbal communication
• alertness, orientation
• no sign of psychosis in their medical history
• willingness to participate in the study after written, informed consent

Exclusion criteria

• the inability to communicate verbally
• psychotic state, altered mental state
• unwillingness to participate
• active and treated malignant disease
• steroid, NSAID or metamizole- sodium use

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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57 participants in 3 patient groups

Patients Meeting the Chaplain at the Bedside

Experimental group

Description:

First meeting with the chaplain, coupled with biblical readings at the bedside.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Meeting with a Chaplain coupled with Biblical Readings

Patients Meeting the Chaplain at the Chapel

Experimental group

Description:

First meeting with the chaplain, coupled with biblical readings at the hospital's chapel

Treatment:

Behavioral: Meeting with a Chaplain coupled with Biblical Readings

Patients Not Meeting the Chaplain

No Intervention group

Description:

In the control group we enrolled patients whose diagnoses and number of days in the hospital was similar to the intervention groups (covariate-adaptive, blocked, stratified randomization method).