In religiously pluralized societies, caregivers frequently care for patients or clients with a religious, spiritual, or secular orientation that differs from their own. Empirical studies exploring the implications of this faith diversity for spiritual care interactions between caregivers and clients are scarce. Some literature suggests that similarities in faith orientation between caregivers and clients relate to better professional caring relationships than encounters with dissimilar faith orientations, while other studies suggest that faith similarities do not relate, or relate only under certain conditions, to the way in which professional caring relationships are perceived. This study supports the second line of thought. Based on a survey among 209 clients and 45 chaplains in hospitals in the Netherlands, it shows that clients in faith-concordant encounters evaluate the spiritual care encounter just as positively as do clients in faith-discordant encounters. This is in line with broader trends of secularization and blurring of boundaries between the religious, spiritual, and secular domains.

在宗教多元化的社会中，护理人员经常照顾具有不同于他们自己的宗教、精神或世俗取向的患者或客户。探索这种信仰多样性对照顾者和客户之间的精神关怀互动的影响的实证研究很少。一些文献表明，与遇到不同的信仰取向相比，看护者和客户之间信仰取向的相似性与更好的专业关怀关系有关，而其他研究表明信仰相似性与专业关怀的方式无关，或仅在某些条件下相关关系被感知。本研究支持第二条思路。根据对荷兰医院的 209 名客户和 45 名牧师的调查，它表明，信仰一致遭遇中的来访者与信仰不一致遭遇中的来访者一样积极地评价精神关怀遭遇。这符合更广泛的世俗化趋势以及宗教、精神和世俗领域之间界限的模糊化。