Abstract
Spirituality and spiritual care have long been kept separate from patient care in mental health, primarily because it has been associated with psycho-pathology. Nursing has provided limited spiritual care competency training for staff in mental health due to fears that psychoses may be activated or exacerbated if religion and spirituality are addressed. However, spirituality is broader than simply religion, including more existential issues such as providing non-judgmental presence, attentive listening, respect, and kindness (International Council of Nursing [ICN], 2012). Unfortunately, healthcare personnel working in mental health institutions are not well prepared to address spiritual concerns or resources of their patients (Cone and Giske, 2018). Therefore, a mixed-method pilot study was conducted using a self-assessment survey tool to examine spiritual care competencies of mental health staff in Norway and to understand the perspectives of mental health staff in the Scandinavian context (Stockman, 2018). Five questions and comments related to survey items provided rich qualitative data. While only a small pilot with 24 participants, this study revealed a need for spiritual care educational materials targeted specifically for those who work in mental health, materials that address the approach of improving attitudes, enhancing skills, and increasing knowledge related to spirituality and spiritual care of patients.
Highlights
According to Nolan et al (2011), the spiritual domain is multidimensional, and it includes existential concerns, value-based issues, and transcendent considerations, including religion, faith, and view of life
Most did not have preparation or training for spiritual care, and had uncertainty about how important it is in the care of mental health patients
Participants were asked one question to help them reflect on the tool and three other questions where they could comment on other aspects of spirituality and spiritual care
Summary
According to Nolan et al (2011), the spiritual domain is multidimensional, and it includes existential concerns, value-based issues, and transcendent considerations, including religion, faith, and view of life. Spirituality is a large umbrella term accommodating existential phenomena such as love and connectedness (Rykkje et al, 2015), meaning and purpose (Balgopal and Montplaisir, 2011), and hope (Harley and Hunn, 2015), as well as transcendence (Walsh, 2010; Pargament, 2013; Weathers et al, 2016). The association between spirituality and religion is especially so in Scandinavian countries where there is a long history with Christianity as the dominant religion and the term has elements of the word for religion within it. Even though the spiritual domain includes far more than religion (Nolan et al, 2011; Skevington et al, 2013; Weathers et al, 2016), many mental health clinicians
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