Studies show help and hurt that can come from how clergy talk about end-of-life care
Two new studies find that many clergy are both ill-prepared and reluctant to engage in end-of-life conversations with terminally ill congregation members and their families.
The result, both studies suggest, is that more believers may be spending their final days enduring painful treatments with little chance of success in intensive care units rather than receiving comfort care at home.
One of the studies was a national survey of more than 1,000 clergy. The other involved in-depth interviews with 35 ministers from five states. The research raises three critical areas of concern:
