Abstract
In this qualitative study, nurses from the United States of America (USA) and Switzerland were asked to recount their spiritual care experiences with cancer patients and their own responses to their patients' spiritual needs. Recent advances in cancer care have highlighted the importance of spirituality and spiritual care as part of quality palliative care from the time of a patient's diagnosis through end of life. Nurses who play an important role in supporting patients, describe their own discomfort when confronting their patients' spiritual needs. A qualitative survey was used to collect narratives of nurses' experiences in responding to spiritual care needs (n=62). The accounts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Nurses identified patients as having spiritual needs and their own experiences in addressing spirituality or religion. Patients sought meaning in their illness, which, they believed, led to disease acceptance. Nurses reported their patients' struggles with challenging disease situations and their own challenges in addressing patients' spirituality/religion. With experience, nurses developed ways of talking with patients about spirituality/religion, which profoundly impacted their own lives and resulted in personal growth. Patients' spirituality was identified by nurses who tried to address patients' spiritual needs drawing on existing resources. For nurses, supporting patients in their spirituality and finding meaning in the disease situation eventually led to disease acceptance.
Highlights
Spirituality is multidimensional and complex, and influences how patients cope with serious illness and how they transition across the cancer continuum (Balboni et al, 2017; Puchalski et al, 2019b)
The survey was dis tributed to nurses attending an End-of-Life Nursing Educational Con sortium (ELNEC) Summit held in San Diego, California on July 30–31, 2019 as well as to nurse practitioner students attending the first nurse practitioner Master of Science in nursing program at the Bern Uni versity of Applied Sciences (BUAS)
Findings from this study suggest that in facing the disease, patients often turn to their religion/spirituality to find meaning
Summary
Spirituality is multidimensional and complex, and influences how patients cope with serious illness and how they transition across the cancer continuum (Balboni et al, 2017; Puchalski et al, 2019b). Spiritual beliefs affect how individuals face a cancer diagnosis, both for those in long-term survivorship or those fa cing their own mortality (Economou, 2018; Ferrell and Paice, 2019; Piderman et al, 2015). Patients may experience spiritual distress at the point of diagnosis, as their disease progresses, and when they face their own mortality (Delgado-Guay et al, 2016). Evidence has shown that in terminal illness, patients' spirituality affects all aspects of their life, such as their attitude toward the disease (Wang et al, 2017). There is considerable debate on the appropriate timing and process of ad dressing and supporting patients’ spiritual or religious issues, for what purpose and by which professionals (Economou, 2018; Puchalski et al, 2019b; Zumstein-Shaha and Alder, 2018)
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