Gallup: One quarter of Americans have utilized spiritual care services
Whether as a hospital patient, a visitor at a nursing home, a member of the armed forces or in some other setting, one in four Americans have interacted with a chaplain at some point in their lives. Although many who have interacted with chaplains aren’t religious themselves, most Americans who have ever been served by a chaplain report that the interaction was valuable.
These findings come from an in-depth survey about Americans’ experiences with chaplains conducted by Gallup for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab at Brandeis University. For the March 2022 survey, chaplains were defined as “clergy or other religious guides or spiritual caregivers who serve people outside of churches or other houses of worship, in settings such as hospitals, the military, prisons, or institutions of higher education, to name a few examples.”
Chaplains may not be as visible in society or familiar to people as clergy, rabbis, imams and other faith leaders who lead weekly religious or prayer services and perform special rituals like weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs for people in the community. Many people never encounter a chaplain, but those who do — representing one in four Americans — report that the experience was both positive and beneficial.
The experience is also unique in that, occurring as it does outside of a religious setting, it often connects faith leaders with nonreligious people — constituting 42% of those who have ever interacted with a chaplain. As such, chaplaincy provides an important mechanism for people from diverse religious orientations to receive spiritual care in a moment of need and reportedly in a way that, for most who’ve experienced it, is compassionate and helpful rather than unwelcome or uncomfortable.