Screening and Supporting Spiritual Concerns in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy with Palliative Care Populations: A Narrative Review Pre-Registration

Summary

This narrative review aims to understand what forms of spirituality screening and spiritual support are available to individuals with serious or life-threatening illness who are involved in psychedelic-assisted therapies. People facing serious illness often experience psychological and spiritual distress such as depression, anxiety, and demoralization. Psychedelic substances are being investigated to treat these conditions, but it is unclear how much spiritual, existential, religious, and theological components are emphasized in screening and treatment protocols. The review will include published studies and ongoing clinical trials involving patients with serious illness receiving psychedelic substances like psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, and ketamine, using an empirical integrative orientation and searching databases including Embase, PubMed, PsycInfo, and CINAHL.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this narrative review is to understand what forms of spirituality screening and spiritual support are available to individuals with serious or life-threating illness involved in psychedelic-assisted therapies. Introduction: In addition to physical pain related to disease and treatment processes, people encountering serious illness frequently experience psychological and spiritual distress that manifests in such conditions as depression, anxiety, and demoralization. Psychedelic substances are currently being investigated to treat these conditions, but current literature is unclear regarding the degree to which spiritual, existential, religious, and theological components are a significant focus of screening and treatment protocols. Inclusion criteria: This review will include published studies and unpublished or ongoing clinical trials involving patients with serious or life-threatening illnesses experiencing depression, anxiety, existential distress or demoralization. Primary interventions involving psychedelic substances (such as psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, and ketamine) will be considered. Primary qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and case studies published after 1994 will be included, but follow-up studies and review articles will not. Methods: The narrative review will be conducted using an empirical integrative orientation. Research databases will be searched, including Embase, PubMed, PsycInfo, and CINAHL. Additionally Clinicaltrials.gov will be searched to gather information on ongoing and unpublished clinical trials. Articles will be loaded into Covidence to screen for duplicate articles, adherence to inclusion/exclusion criteria, and relevance. Included articles and studies will undergo full text review, and analysed and synthesized using a pre-determined extraction table. Results will report findings including themes and observations of study reports.