The Need of Muslim Chaplain In Hospital-Based Services in Malaysia: A Scoping Review of Literature

Abstract

Introduction: The roles of Muslim chaplain within the boundary of healthcare services in Malaysia should be brought into highlight as they can facilitate the provision of spiritual services for clients with various spiritual and cultural needs. Nonetheless, less attention has been paid to the collaboration between the Muslim chaplain and the healthcare professionals in the Malaysian healthcare settings. This paper provides a scoping review on the articles that can provide insight on the need for Muslim chaplain in the hospital-based services for Malaysia setting based on the expertise the chaplain can provide. Methods: A literature search was done with the keywords including chaplain* OR clergy* AND Muslim* AND hospital* via databases such as Web of Science, SCOPUS, MEDLINE (Proquest), CINAHL and Google scholar, A total of 15 articles has been reviewed and were included in this article to address the aim of this paper and they were limited to English and published within 2011 till 2021. Discussion: This review paper highlighted a discussion on the emerging need of Muslim chaplaincy in the 21st century, and their scope of practice in Hospital-based services as seen in the literature. This is followed by the issues on spiritual struggles among those admitted to hospitals. Conclusion: This paper thus provides recommendations for recruitment of Muslim chaplains, the need for training and future empirical work on the benefits of spiritual services provided by chaplaincy services for the sick.