Local General Practitioner–Parish Minister Networks for Existential Care in Danish Primary Care—What Did We Learn? A Ricoeur-Inspired Focus Group Study

BACKGROUND: Local networks between General Practitioners (GPs) and Parish Ministers (PMs) have been piloted in Denmark to address the lack of collaboration between the two groups in order to strengthen existential and spiritual support in primary care. Evidence on how such collaborations are experienced by practitioners is limited.

AIM: The objective was to explore the experience of GPs and PMs participating in locally established interdisciplinary networks.

DESIGN AND METHODS: Within a Ricoeur-inspired phenomenological hermeneutical framework, we conducted five focus group interviews with five GPs and nine PMs from four Danish localities engaged in a step-by-step, participant-validated networking manual. Data was analyzed using a three-level process, including naïve reading, structural analysis, and critical interpretation and discussion.

RESULTS: Participants described the collaboration as an educational, relationship-building process that required time and trust. Four themes emerged: (1) sharpening professional identity (GPs reframed limits of "fixing," and PMs broadened pastoral scope); (2) building relationships (mutual prejudices surfaced and were dismantled; in-person meetings were pivotal); (3) serving the patient's perspective better (PMs offered a non-clinical space for existential issues; early patient involvement energized groups); and (4) envisioning PMs' role in primary care (promise of complementarity vs. value of remaining outside formal health system documentation).

CONCLUSIONS: Locally grown GP-PM networks can reframe practice for both professions and open a pragmatic pathway for addressing patients' existential concerns. Relationship-building and early, appropriate patient inclusion appear central to momentum. Further research should examine patient outcomes and feasible models for collaboration that preserve confidentiality and role clarity.