An Exploration of Specialist Palliative Care Nurses’ Experiences of Providing Care to Hospice Inpatients from Minority Ethnic Groups—Implication for Religious and Spiritual Care

Abstract

Abstract:The aim of this research study was to gain an understanding of nurses' experiences of providing care to patients from minority ethnic groups within the specialist palliative care inpatient unit of an Irish hospice. Five nurses working in a hospice inpatient unit with experience in providing care to patients from minority ethnic groups were interviewed using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Analysis of the data resulted in the emergence of two distinct constructs, "encountering a landscape of diversity" and "negotiating this landscape", each one comprising three themes. Findings relating to religion and supporting patients' religious needs were dominant in four of the six emergent themes-death and dying, acceptance, feeling their way, and being resourceful. The findings presented in this paper highlight the personal and professional challenges facing nurses when providing care in the context of religious diversity. In addition, participants' descriptions of their endeavours to negotiate the challenges in the context of these differences are identified. By applying these findings in practice, healthcare professionals hold the potential to positively impact the quality-of-life of patients, their families, and their experiences of hospice care in Ireland.

Organization-level principles and practices to support spiritual care at the end of life: a qualitative study

“…Faith traditions often have particular practices, ceremonies, or rites that will ideally take place leading up to, at, and after the time of death. One of the commonly offered solutions to this question of how to provide for people of different faith traditions is short descriptive accounts of the beliefs and practices of these traditions, and there is considerable literature about the variety of religious and ritual requirements and needs present in today’s ethnically and religiously diverse society [ 62 – 64 ]. Certainly the insights from this work are necessary and valid; the hospices participating in this study indeed aim for multicultural awareness and sensitivity.…”

Special Issue “International Conference of Spirituality in Healthcare. Sowing the Seeds”—Trinity College Dublin 2015

“…Henry and Timmin's [24] paper supports the notion that spiritual and religious needs coexist in palliative care settings, particular during death and dying, and that nurses find themselves having to be very resourceful in such situations. Inbadas [25] further highlights the cultural dimension of spirituality in palliative care.…”

Healthcare practitioners’ perspectives of providing palliative care to patients from culturally diverse backgrounds: a qualitative systematic review

“…There was evidence of positive efforts made by practitioners to ensure patients could be understood and this was seen as a way of establishing trust [38,40,42,43]. To support understanding, practitioners sometimes used unorthodox methods such as drawing up word lists [36], drawing pictures [49], using sign language [34, Henry and Timmins, (2016) [39] An exploration of specialised palliative care nurses' experiences of providing care to hospice inpatients from minority ethnic groupsimplications for religious and spiritual care.…”

“…Seeking and building on similarities is also thought to facilitate connection [34,38,43,53]. Intense expressions of distress and grief by family members were noted in a number of studies [39,48,53,54,57]. Practitioners emphasised the importance of providing physical space to facilitate such expression [54,57] and emotional support for families at such times [52].…”

“…One study across 4 papers • Johnstone et al [40,41,41,42,42,43,43,44] • Washington et al [33,57] and Khosla et al [44,45,45,46,46,47] One study across 2 papers • de Graaff et al [34,35,35,36] • Roider-Schur et al [52,53] Country of origin • Austria [52,53] • Australia [38,[40][41][42][43] • Canada [50,51,56] • Ireland [39] • Netherlands [34][35][36] • New Zealand [30] • Norway [33] • Sweden [48,55] • United States [37, 44-46, 49, 57] • South Africa [47].…”