Abstract
The aim of this paper was to explore a select group of Spanish nurses’ views of spirituality and spiritual care. An exploratory design using both qualitative and quantitative methods was used in this study. The participants were nurses who were enrolled in a Master of Nursing Research. Data were collected via an open questionnaire. Furthermore, participants completed the Meaning in Life Scale (MiLS-Sp), whose results were analysed using quantitative methodology. The results that were obtained from the quantitative analyses reported a satisfactory mean score on nurses’ self-reported spirituality. Qualitative data were analysed using grounded theory procedures. Qualitative analysis showed two approaches to spirituality nurses’ views: (i) a clinical approach that influenced by the context of their clinical practice and (ii) an alternative approach where spirituality was viewed as a health resource, moving away from the biomedical model of nursing training. Nurses are sensitive to spirituality issues and acknowledge their importance to practice. Despite this, they view spirituality in a rather mechanistic way without changing their attitudes, competences and perspectives on healthcare.
Highlights
Since Florence Nightingale, spirituality has become a focus for nursing theory and practice (Jaberi et al 2017; Ku 2017; Pike 2011; Timmins et al 2015) and patients’ spiritual needs have been acknowledged in policy documents (McSherry 2016)
Our study shows that nurses are sensitive to spirituality issues and they acknowledge their importance to practice
Participants’ views of an alternative approach to the clinical approach to spirituality suggest that nursing education programs should include information on spirituality that reinforces a change in nursing outlook
Summary
Since Florence Nightingale, spirituality has become a focus for nursing theory and practice (Jaberi et al 2017; Ku 2017; Pike 2011; Timmins et al 2015) and patients’ spiritual needs have been acknowledged in policy documents (McSherry 2016). Nurse educators are increasingly being asked to cover this issue in teaching (Cone and Giske 2013; Galloway and Hand 2017) and scholars have introduced spirituality into their nursing care models and made it the cornerstone of holistic nursing care Despite this increased interest, literature that is related to spirituality in nursing education is scarce. The role of spirituality in nursing and in the health sciences has been the object of recent literatures reviews (Pirkola et al 2016) which reflects the relevance of this topic for nursing today. This interest in the nursing literature is triggered by the realization that holistic patient care ought to include spiritual care. The spiritual needs of the practicing nurse are not typically evaluated or addressed (Koren and Papadimitriou 2013) but there is emerging recognition of the spiritual needs of nurses
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