Chaplain Family Project Trial

Unmet spiritual needs may have at least two negative consequences for surrogates. First, they may have high levels of spiritual distress, an important aspect of the surrogate's well-being. Second, surrogates include their religious and spiritual beliefs when making serious medical decisions . Therefore unmet spiritual needs may have a negative effect on the surrogate's ability to make good decisions for the patient, especially when facing extremely distressful decisions such as whether to continue life sustaining treatment or enroll in hospice. The specific aims of this proposed study are: 1. To determine the effect of the spiritual care intervention on psychological well-being for family surrogates at 3 months post discharge, including anxiety (primary outcome: GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), Posttraumatic stress (IES-R), and overall distress. 2. To determine the effect of the spiritual care intervention on spiritual well-being for family surrogates, (FACIT-SP- non-illness) and on religious coping (Brief RCOPE positive and negative). 3. To determine the effects of the spiritual care intervention on other aspects of the surrogates' experience, including satisfaction with spiritual care (Patient Satisfaction Instrument--Chaplaincy) communication (FICS), overall satisfaction with the hospital stay (Picker single item) and decision conflict (DCS). 4. To determine the effect of the intervention on treatment at the end of life (life sustaining treatments and hospice utilization) for patients who die in the hospital. 5. To determine differences in outcomes between the intervention group, who will receive our intervention, and the control group, who will receive the usual care provided by the hospital chaplaincy service.