PURPOSE. To differentiate the definitions of spirituality and religiousness as used in nursing literature.
DATA SOURCES. Journal articles, books, book chapters.
DATA SYNTHESIS. The nursing literature has been inconsistent in defining spirituality and religiousness. The spirituality literature defines spirituality as the broader concept, with religiousness as a subconcept, while the religiousness literature defines religiousness as the broader concept, with spirituality as a subconcept.
CONCLUSIONS. Spirituality and religiousness are two separate nursing diagnoses with some common elements to both.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS. The growth of parish nursing as an ANA‐recognized specialty practice has heightened the awareness of caring for the human spirit. Clarity is needed in the terms used to define this specialty.
The literature synthesis indicated that community-based interventions are beneficial to enhancing quality of life and decreasing symptoms in survivors. Exercise, support, and family-centered interventions for children and spouses demonstrated promising results. These findings have implications for nursing practice in communities, where oncology nurses and other professionals can begin concentrating intervention efforts. Additional studies are needed on high-quality, cost-effective, and collaborative community-based interventions for survivors of cancer, including underrepresented populations.
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