Chaplains’ collaboration and leadership in interprofessional healthcare: a scoping review part 1: Multifaceted roles

Healthcare chaplains provide care within interprofessional collaborative contexts. However, little is known about their functional roles as collaborators and leaders, including what capabilities, influence, and skills chaplains leverage in their work. In Part 1 of a two-part scoping review, we examine chaplains' collaborative and leadership roles in interprofessional healthcare teams through mapping the existing research literature. We analyzed 53 empirical studies that met the inclusion criteria. Six collaborative roles for chaplains were identified: relationship and communication facilitation, consultation for whole-person care, education, staff support, research collaboration, and collaborative leadership. The latter category included five additional characteristic interprofessional leadership roles: leading by spiritual care expertise, fostering interprofessional collaboration, mediation and conflict management, advocacy and change leadership, and improving decision-making. In the service of whole-person care, we discuss research contributions and gaps, implications for practice, and recommendations for future research.