Abstract
BackgroundAlthough spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, nurses’ spiritual care knowledge and abilities are often unable to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs. Therefore, nurses are in urgent need of relevant training to enhance their abilities to provide patients with spiritual care.DesignA nonrandomized controlled trial.ObjectiveTo establish a spiritual care training protocol and verify its effectiveness.MethodsThis study recruited 92 nurses at a cancer treatment hospital in a single province via voluntary sign-up. The nurses were divided into two groups—the study group (45 people) and the control (wait-listed) group (47 people)—using a coin-toss method. The study group received one spiritual care group training session every six months based on their routine nursing education; this training chiefly consisted of lectures by experts, group interventions, clinical practice, and case sharing. The control group participated in monthly nursing education sessions organized by the hospital for 12 continuous months.ResultsAfter 12 months of intervention, the nurses in the study group had significantly higher overall spiritual health and spiritual care competency scores as well as significantly higher scores on all individual dimensions compared with those in the control group (P < 0.01).ConclusionsA spiritual care training protocol for nurses based on the concept of mutual growth with patients enhances nurses’ spiritual well-being and spiritual care competencies.
Highlights
Spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, nurses’ spiritual care knowledge and abilities are often unable to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs
A spiritual care training protocol for nurses based on the concept of mutual growth with patients enhances nurses’ spiritual well-being and spiritual care competencies
Spiritual care consists of nursing methods or activities that rely on the provision of company or care, listening, or religious activities that correspond to patients’ beliefs to help them to achieve better physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and comfort [17, 25] The purpose of spiritual care is to ease patients’ difficulties at the spiritual level and help them find the meaning of life, selfactualization, hope, creativity, faith, trust, peace, comfort, prayer, and the ability to love and forgive in the midst of suffering and disease [17, 26]
Summary
Spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, nurses’ spiritual care knowledge and abilities are often unable to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs. Spiritual care education and training helps nurses to understand patients’ senses of honour, values, and experience to express kind concern for their patients, ease patients’ stress and tension, provide them with spiritual well-being and serenity [30] and let them find meaning and purpose amidst adversity [17, 31] Under this care, patients can explore strategies to overcome their illnesses as well as strengthen their physical, social, and psychological health, thereby improving their quality of life and state of health [17, 23, 31, 32]. The ability to provide spiritual care to patients is increasingly considered a major occupational skill for nurses [19, 23]
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