DEVELOPING A MINISTRY IN THE 67TH EVACUATION HOSPITAL AMONG NURSING PERSONNEL SUFFERING STRESS AND DISTRESS.
Contributors: Drew University.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 242
Subjects: Religion, General.
Description: Medical staff suffer physical, psychological, and theological problems due to stress. This is especially true of health care personnel in a military hospital where the whole person is taxed to the limits of his/her existence. Stress had become an acute factor in causing low morale, inefficiency, and deterioration of work performance and family and interpersonal relationships.

The purpose of developing a ministry for the medical staff was to provide pastoral care as they practiced their respective professions in health care. This was accomplished by using the theological constructs of Seward Hiltner, a pastor and theologian: Shepherding, Communicating, and Organizing. The project also included healing, guiding, and sustaining which Hiltner incorporated in his theology of pastoral care.

The project was carried out with the medical staff on Ward 2-B (experimental group) and Ward 3-B (control group) of the 67th Medical Company, USAMEDDAC Wurzburg, Germany. Pastoral care was administered to staff personnel on Ward 2-B using the concept of Shepherding through individual counseling, in service or group counseling, visitation, and prayer. Communicating took place in a classroom setting, counseling, worship, and interpretation of personality testing.

The central idea of organizing, according to Hiltner, "is fellowship, the process by which an association becomes a body and then acts like a body." Organizing this fellowship, in this sense the church, may be seen in three aspects: (1) nourishing, feeding or aiding in the development of the fellowship of the church; (2) protecting or purifying it from threats within or without; and (3) relating it positively or negatively, to other bodies such as institutions, cultures, or states. Ward 3-B, (control group), experienced the same schedule of training and environment of health care as Ward 2-B, (experimental group), but was not exposed to this perspective model of ministry.

The experimental group was compared to the control group by using data from stress tests, a questionnaire, observation, consultation, and feedback from other participants. The results have indicated that this model of ministry can be administered to persons who suffer stress and feel alienated from the Creator, have poor interpersonal relationships, and feel a sense of low-worth. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-09, Section: A, page: 2692.

Thesis (D.MIN.)--DREW UNIVERSITY, 1987.

School code: 0064.