Factors Associated with Frequency of Religious and Spiritual Conversations in Practicum Placement

Background and Purpose: Religion and/or spirituality is considered an important element of holistic healthcare which can contribute to individual well-being (Armah et al., 2022, VanderWheele, 2017: Ventegodt et al., 2016). Clients have indicated they want religion and spirituality integrated within their treatment (Oxhandler, Narendorf et al., 2018; Oxhandler et al., 2021a). However, practitioners report lack of training can make it difficult for them to integrate religion and/or spirituality (RS) in their work (Creech, 2022; Jones et al., 2021; Pearce et al., 2020). While recent studies assess curriculum or classroom training in RS (Canda et al., 2023; Oxhandler et al., 2023; Moffat & Oxhandler, 2018; Moffatt et al., 2021; Oxhandler et al., 2022), little is known about RS training in social work practicums. This presentation addresses the questions: How often do RS conversations occur in practicum supervision? What factors are associated with the frequency of RS conversations between students and practicum instructors?

Methods: Purposive sampling methods were used to identify BASW and MSW students in programs across a northeastern state who completed a practicum placement within the past six months. Students completed an online survey which assessed how frequently they discussed religion and how often they discussed spirituality with their supervisors. Students answered questions about various factors which could influence the occurrence of these discussions; religiosity, working alliance, whether the supervisor disclosed their spiritual or religious positionality, attachment style, comfort discussing personal RS and comfort discussing client RS. Students also provided demographic information including race, sexual identity, gender identity, religious affiliation and age. These factors were included in ordinal logistic regression models.

Results: The final sample included 91 survey respondents. Incomplete cases were not included in ordinal logistic regression analyses. Over half of survey respondents never or almost never discuss religion (52%, n=47) or spirituality (53%, n=48) and less than 7% often or always discuss religion (6.6%, n=6) or spirituality (4.4%, n=4). Models indicate that increased comfort discussing client RS (OR=1.8, p<0.05), increased supervisor disclosure (OR=1.5, p<0.01), identifying as Catholic/Protestant compared to Atheist/Agnostic (OR=10.6, p<0.05) and identifying as LGBQ+ (OR=4.1, p<0.05) significantly predicted frequency of discussions about religion in supervision. When considering factors that influence frequency of conversations about spirituality, increased supervisor disclosure (OR=1.6, p<0.01), identifying as Catholic/Protestant compared to Atheist/Agnostic (OR=9.0, p<0.05) and identifying as LGBQ+ (OR=6.0, p<0.05) were statistically significant predictors. This model included both comfort discussing personal RS and comfort discussing client RS. When models were run with only one of these two comfort factors, both comfort discussing personal RS (OR=1.5, p<0.05) and comfort discussing client RS (OR=1.7, p<0.05) were individually significant in addition to previously mentioned significant factors.

Conclusion and Implications: Practicum instructors can create a supervision environment where students feel comfortable discussing RS to support client care. Knowing demographic characteristics, supervisor use of disclosure and student comfort levels influence frequency of these discussions, implications for practicum instructors to engage students of different positionalities. Particular attention will be given to methods of supervisor disclosure and engaging students of varying sexual identities and religious identifications.