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The impact of nurses' spiritual health on their attitudes toward spiritual care, professional commitment, and caring

This study aimed to explore the perception of Iranian nurses concerning spiritual care and to reveal any confronted barriers. Although the context of spiritual care is a substantial aspect of holistic care, the delivery of spiritual care has been problematic due to lack of nurses' understanding of this concept. Nurses' perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care directly influence their performance as well as their relationships with patients. This cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2013 with 259 nurses working in hospitals affiliated with Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Data were collected using the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale alongside qualitative open-ended questions. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the quantitative data and content analysis for the qualitative data. The overall average for spirituality and spiritual care was 2.84 (score range: 1-4), indicating a moderate mean score. A significant relationship was found between education level and spiritual care. The majority of participants believed that they did not receive enough training in this aspect of care. The main obstacles regarding delivering spiritual care included busy working schedules, insufficient knowledge regarding spiritual care, low motivation, diversity of patients' spiritual needs and feeling 'unqualified' to provide spiritual cares. Consistent with the previous studies, this study has demonstrated that nurses had low confidence to meet the spiritual needs of patients due to lack of knowledge and training in this regard. Iranian nurses' perception of spirituality and spiritual care is moderate, reflecting that they do not receive sufficient training regarding spiritual care. Despite the attention focused on spiritual care in clinical settings in Iran, there remains a significant gap in terms of meeting the spiritual needs of patients in nursing practice. This finding assists nursing clinicians, educators and policy makers to more effectively approach spiritual care as a beneficial component of holistic care. It is proposed that more emphasis is placed on integrating spirituality content into educational programmes to enable more effective clinical delivery. In addition, it would be beneficial to implement more widespread cultural assessment in order to further benefit spiritual care practices.

Editorial: Critical reflections on the current state of spirituality‐in‐nursing

Spirituality and spiritual care both have received increased attention over the course of this past decade from different disciplines. However, for many years, in the occupational therapy profession, the importance of spirituality and spiritual care seems to be controversial because it is unclear how these concepts are integrated in occupational therapy education. Although occupational therapy students are being educated to consider a holistic and client-centred approach, spirituality is not regarded within this framework which diminishes the integrity of holistic approach. In South African occupational therapy education, it is unclear whether any single course on teaching and learning of spirituality and spiritual care exists. Thus, the aim of this study was to describe occupational therapy students' perceptions and attitudes regarding spirituality and spiritual care in occupational therapy education. A cross-sectional descriptive study design of undergraduate occupational therapy students from one educational institution was used. Data included demographic characteristics, responses on Spiritual Care-Giving Scale (SCGS), Spiritual and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS) and Spirituality in Occupational Therapy Scale (SOTS). A response rate of 50.5% (n=100 out of 198) was achieved. In the SCGS, among the factors only factor 1 had the highest mean value score showing consistent agreement about spirituality, whereas in the SSCRS only three factors were found to have highest mean score and one with lowest mean score. In SOTS, participants had a highest score mean in relation to formal education and training about spirituality. Thus, in the integration of spirituality and spiritual care a holistic approach needs to be considered in education to enhance students' knowledge of how to address mind, body and spirit needs.

PurposeProviding spiritual care is an essential part of holistic nursing practice since it promotes patients' mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Spirituality and religiosity affect nurses' ability to provide spiritual care. A thorough evaluation of these elements is necessary to guarantee high-quality care. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between Filipino nurses' spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual care competency.DesignThe study used a descriptive-correlational design. Validated measures evaluating spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual care competency were used to gather data from registered nurses. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the participants' profiles and competence levels, while Pearson's r was used to assess the relationships among spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual care competency.FindingsThe results showed that nurses have a high level of spirituality and religiosity, while their spiritual care competency is moderate. A significant positive relationship was found between nurses' spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual care competence.ConclusionRecognizing the role of spirituality and religiosity in nursing practice may support the development of spiritual care competency and holistic nursing care.

Background: Spiritual care is an important aspect of patient centered care and in healthcare research, the focus on spiritual care has been growing over the past decades. Providing spiritual care in a global, culturally entwined, and pluralistic world is complicated, as providers are sensitive to the potential variance in the secular, spiritual, and religious meaning orientations of their patients. The purpose of spiritual nursing care is to support people's spiritual health, encourage inner serenity, offer emotional support, and assist them in using their spiritual resources to get through trying times. Purpose: To identify challenges nurses face (communication, sensitivity) for improvement. Methods: In this study, we estimated ten patients from a geriatric ward in Edinburgh, Scotland, who were asked to define their spiritual requirements. Results: In our study, the majority of the patients expressed a desire to make sense of or find purpose in their lives, as well as to be loved and accepted. Conclusion: The study provides theoretical research and empirical support for nursing, creating a cumulative added value in spiritual nursing care. Future studies on spiritual care in nursing should inform changes in education and practice. This patient requirement must be prioritized alongside all other physical and mental needs. Implications for Nursing: Spiritual care in nursing practice has the potential to significantly enhance patient well-being and expand the role of nurses in healthcare. By addressing these challenges and fostering better training and education, nurses can become more equipped to integrate spiritual care into their practice. Keywords: Spiritual care, Spiritual well-being, Spiritual interventions, Nursing care, Holistic care, Spiritual health.

Spiritual care refers to the care provided by religious leaders (chaplains, pastors or ministers), social workers and other counsellors. It reinforces one’s understanding of one’s beliefs in a moment of a crisis. One’s spirituality will always influence one’s journey towards healing. Spiritual care calls for an understanding of the holistic pastoral care that seeks to promote the individual’s and also a group’s welfare by attending to their socio-economic and spiritual matters of concern. Traditionally, spiritual care was only done through contact sessions in pastoral care spaces such as church meetings, hospitals, prisons, and workplaces. This approach refers to the notion that unless one travels to a meeting point, one will not provide or receive spiritual care as desired. With the advent of technology and digital and social media platforms that form our daily lives, spiritual care should be transformed to hybrid approaches, as social media platforms are used in family life, health spaces, business, and workplaces. Social media has become a valuable tool that is unavoidable in pastoral care spaces. The synergy between the physical contact approach and digital platforms increases the capacity of reaching out in providing spiritual care services. This desktop study aims at understanding the role and impact of the social media in spiritual care when used together with the traditional contact approaches. The article utilised literature reviews on spiritual care in general and the use of social media in pastoral care to arrive at its conclusions. It discusses the implications of using social media in pastoral care. This study thus seeks to enhance the hypothesis that social media can neither be ignored nor left out in spiritual care and related issues.

The delivery of spiritual and religious care has received a high profile in national reports, guidelines and standards since the start of the millennium, yet there is, to date, no recognized definition of spirituality or spiritual care nor a validated assessment tool. This article suggests an alternative to the search for a definition and assessment tool, and seeks to set spiritual care in a practical context by offering a model for spiritual assessment and care based on the individual competence of all healthcare professionals to deliver spiritual and religious care. Through the evaluation of a pilot study to familiarize staff with the Spiritual and Religious Care Competencies for Specialist Palliative Care developed by Marie Curie Cancer Care, the authors conclude that competencies are a viable and crucial first step in 'earthing' spiritual care in practice, and evidencing this illusive area of care.

This paper presents the preliminary descriptive findings from an online survey commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing to ascertain members' perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care. There is a professional requirement for nurses to achieve competence in the delivery of spiritual care and to assess and meet the spiritual needs of their patients. Recently, the area of spirituality has come under criticism bringing into question the role of the nurse with regard to the provision of spiritual care. A descriptive online survey was conducted with all Royal College of Nursing members to obtain their perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care in an attempt to identify what action they feel is required with regard to this aspect of nursing practice. An online survey consisting of a five-part questionnaire was developed incorporating the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale. Members were asked to complete the survey during a three-week period in March 2010. Overall, 4054 Royal College of Nursing members responded, making this probably the largest UK survey ascertaining nurses' perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care. Descriptive statistics, frequencies and percentages were used to identify key findings. A Cronbach's alpha of 0·80 was obtained for the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale. The preliminary analysis confirms that nurses across the full health economy in the United Kingdom consider spirituality to be a fundamental aspect of nursing. The findings indicate that nurses recognise that attending to the spiritual needs of patients enhances the overall quality of nursing care. However, despite all the attention given to the spiritual dimension, the majority of nurses still feel that they require more guidance and support from governing bodies to enable them to support and effectively meet their patients' spiritual needs.

Background: Spiritual health is considered one of the most important components of health and palliative care that facilitates harmonious and integrated communication among one's inner forces. One of the basic principles of holistic nursing care is to pay attention to the spirituality and spiritual care of patients. Spiritual care is an important source of adaptation in refractory and chronic patients such as cancer. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of spiritual care on the spiritual health of adolescents with cancer. Methods: This pre-experimental, single-group, pre-post study was performed on 35 adolescents with cancer admitted to Imam Ali Teaching Hospital in Zahedan from May to September 2019. Convenient sampling technique was performed to carry out the study based on inclusion criteria. Data collection tools included demographic information questionnaire and Paloutzian and Ellison Spiritual Health questionnaire. Before and after the spiritual care intervention, the required data were collected by interviewing adolescents and using questionnaires. The data were analyzed using Shapiro-Wilk test and paired t-test. Results: Adolescents’ overall spiritual health score increased from 52 ± 7.34 before the intervention to 102 ± 6.57 after the intervention and the difference was significant (P = 0.001). Conclusions: According to the findings of the present study, spiritual care is effective in the spiritual health of adolescents with cancer and can promote adolescent spiritual health. Therefore, it is suggested that nurses incorporate spiritual care into their patient care plans as a simple, accessible, safe and affordable way to promote their spiritual health.

Uvod: Duhovnost v zdravstveni negi v svetu temelji na raziskavah, ki so podlaga za praktično delo medicinskih sester. Namen raziskave je bil ugotoviti število objavljene znanstvene literature na temo duhovnosti v zdravstveni negi v slovenskem prostoru in jo proučiti glede na raziskovalni pristop in vsebinsko tematiko.Metode: Uporabljen je bil pregled znanstvene literature, objavljene od 2005 do 2017 v podatkovni bazi COBIB.SI. Iskanje je potekalo s ključnimi besedami: »duhovnost«, »duhovna oskrba«, »celostni pristop«, »zdravstvena nega«, »paliativna oskrba«, »žalovanje«, »umiranje«, »duhovno zdravje«. Uporabljena je bila metoda analize vsebine. Rezultati: Izmed 367 identificiranih objav je bilo v končno analizo vključenih 11 znanstvenih del. Z metodo analize vsebine so bile identificirane tri kategorije: (1) razumevanje pojma duhovnosti in duhovne oskrbe ter pripisovanje njunega pomena za paciente; (2) zaznavanje duhovnih potreb pacientov in izvajanje prakse duhovne oskrbe; (3) predstavitev potencialov eksistencialno- fenomenološkega pristopa, ki poglabljajo samorazumevanje spremljevalca pri spremljanju in duhovni podpori pacientov in njihovih svojcev.Diskusija in zaključek: Zanimanje za obravnavano temo je v domačem prostoru prisotno. V znanstvenih objavah je duhovnost najpogosteje obravnavana na področju paliativne oskrbe in umiranja. Medicinske sestre imajo pomembno vlogo pri zaznavanju in opozarjanju na duhovne potrebe pacientov ter nudenju podpore.

There is a professional requirement for student nurses to achieve competence in the delivery of spiritual care. However, there is no research exploring students nurses perceptions of being educated in these matters. This paper explores the ethical basis of teaching student nurses about the concepts of spirituality and spiritual care by reporting the findings from the first year of a 3 year investigation. An exploratory longitudinal design was used to obtain student nurses perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care as they progressed through a 3 year programme. A questionnaire incorporating the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale was distributed to 176 pre-registration nursing students undertaking either the Advanced Diploma or Bachelor of Science degree programmes. A response rate of 76.7% was obtained. Findings reveal that the majority of student nurses perceived spirituality to be a universal phenomenon of a type that can be associated with existentialism. Some students were very uncertain and apprehensive about being instructed in spiritual matters. A cohort of student nurses held similar understandings of spirituality to those presented in the nursing literature. However the results also suggest an overwhelming majority felt it was wrong for spirituality to imply that some people are better than others and most were uncertain whether spirituality was related to good and evil. RELEVANCE TO NURSE EDUCATION: The investigation reveals that there are a number of ethical concerns surrounding the teaching of spirituality to student nurses that need to be resolved.

The aim of this study was to generate a deeper understanding of the factors and forces that may inhibit or advance the concepts of spirituality and spiritual care within both nursing and health care. This manuscript presents a model that emerged from a qualitative study using grounded theory. Implementation and use of this model may assist all health care practitioners and organizations to advance the concepts of spirituality and spiritual care within their own sphere of practice. The model has been termed the principal components model because participants identified six components as being crucial to the advancement of spiritual health care. Grounded theory was used meaning that there was concurrent data collection and analysis. Theoretical sampling was used to develop the emerging theory. These processes, along with data analysis, open, axial and theoretical coding led to the identification of a core category and the construction of the principal components model. Fifty-three participants (24 men and 29 women) were recruited and all consented to be interviewed. The sample included nurses (n=24), chaplains (n=7), a social worker (n=1), an occupational therapist (n=1), physiotherapists (n=2), patients (n=14) and the public (n=4). The investigation was conducted in three phases to substantiate the emerging theory and the development of the model. The principal components model contained six components: individuality, inclusivity, integrated, inter/intra-disciplinary, innate and institution. A great deal has been written on the concepts of spirituality and spiritual care. However, rhetoric alone will not remove some of the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers that are inhibiting the advancement of the spiritual dimension in terms of theory and practice. An awareness of and adherence to the principal components model may assist nurses and health care professionals to engage with and overcome some of the structural, organizational, political and social variables that are impacting upon spiritual care.

Spirituality may play an important role in neurorehabilitation, however research findings indicate that rehabilitation professionals do not feel well equipped to deliver spiritual care. To evaluate a spiritual care training program for rehabilitation professionals. An exploratory controlled trial was conducted. Participants enrolled in a two-module spiritual care training program. Spiritual care competency was measured with the Spiritual Care Competency Scale. Confidence and comfort levels were measured using the Spiritual Care Competency Scale domains. The Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale assessed participant attitudes and knowledge. Measures were administered three times: pre-program, post-program and six weeks follow-up. The training (n = 41) and control (n = 32) groups comprised rehabilitation professionals working in spinal cord or traumatic brain injury units. No between-group differences were observed on the study variables at the pre-program time point. Multilevel models found that levels of spiritual care competency, confidence, comfort, and ratings on existential spirituality increased significantly for the training group (versus control) post-program (p < 0.05) and these significant differences were maintained at follow-up. A brief spiritual care training program can be effective in increasing levels of self-reported competency, confidence and comfort in delivery of spiritual care for rehabilitation professionals.

To explore the experience of spirituality and spiritual care by military nurses on deployed operations. Despite an increasing body of research addressing spirituality in nursing care in a variety of clinical settings, the deployed military nursing context remains poorly understood. A qualitative, philosophical hermeneutic design. Ten Australian military nurses were interviewed about their experiences of spirituality and spiritual care while on deployed operations. Analyses were performed using a phenomenological method informed by philosophical hermeneutics. The participants perceived that they had an important role in the provision of spiritual care in the absence of family on deployed operations. However, the nurse also needed to care for their own spiritual needs. The results suggested that spirituality and spiritual care may provide positive benefits in protecting against the long-term psychological, emotional and spiritual impacts of military service on deployed operations. Military nurses need to understand the factors that influence spiritual care delivery in their practice setting. Nurses need to be cognizant of the importance of spiritual care in the deployed military context, not only for their patients and colleagues, but also for themselves. Spirituality is argued as a protective factor against the challenges and consequences often associated with deployment. Well-developed spiritual resilience may assist in ensuring that military personnel return home emotionally, psychologically and spiritually 'fit'. To provide effective spiritual nursing care to deployed military populations, the nurse needs to understand the complex military practice environment, the personal and individual nature of spiritual expressions and their own spiritual care requirements. Meaningful spiritual care aids resilience against the psychological, emotional and spiritual dangers of deployment.