An investigation into the spiritual needs of neuro-oncology patients from a nurse perspective

Abstract

BackgroundSpiritual needs of cancer patients should be assessed and discussed by healthcare professionals. Neurosurgical nurses need to be able to assess and support neuro-oncology patients with their spiritual needs from diagnosis and throughout their hospital stay.MethodsData were collected through questionnaires using a Critical Incident Technique (CIT) from neurosurgical nurses, findings were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsNurses reported some awareness of their patients’ spiritual needs during their stay on neurosurgical units although some used expressions approximating what could be described as spiritual needs. Patients’ spiritual needs were identified as: need to talk about spiritual concerns, showing sensitivity to patients’ emotions, responding to religious needs; and relatives’ spiritual needs included: supporting them with end of life decisions, supporting them when feeling being lost and unbalanced, encouraging exploration of meaning of life, and providing space, time and privacy to talk. Participants appeared largely to be in tune with their patients’ spiritual needs and reported that they recognised effective strategies to meet their patients’ and relatives’ spiritual needs. However, the findings also suggest that they don’t always feel prepared to offer spiritual support for neuro-oncology patients.ConclusionsThere is a need for healthcare professionals to provide spiritual care for neuro-oncology patients and their relatives. Although strategies were identified that nurses can use to support patients with spiritual needs further research is required to explore how effective nurses are at delivering spiritual care and if nurses are the most appropriate professionals to support neuro-oncology patients with spiritual care.

Spiritual care rendered by registered nurses at a state hospital in Windhoek Namibia

“…Death is a sensitive subject to discuss in the Africa culture and is usually avoided by those affected and caring for the patient. However, in a similar study nurses reported that they render nursing care to patients and relatives such as supporting them with end of life decisions, supporting them when feeling being lost and unbalanced, encouraging exploration of meaning of life, and providing space, time and privacy to talk 3 . The findings suggest that Participants are aware of spiritual care but are not largely in tune with rendering patient spiritual care.…”

“…Participants in a previous study reported that they don't always feel prepared to offer spiritual support for patients. 3 There is a big gap between the understanding of spiritual care by the participants, their role in it, its importance and the spiritual care rendered to patients. Of the 80% of participants who indicated that spiritual care helps patient to recover and 50% that indicated their responsibility to render spiritual care only, 57.14% rarely or never asses the patients spirituality background and 50% rarely or never gather information on the patient's spiritual background.…”

“…We have all observed that a physical condition can affect the mind and spirit. 3 We are also aware that when a person is hurting emotionally or spiritually, all sorts of physical ailments may manifest. 3 The biblical world understanding has always maintained a unified view of the person where God's action relates to the whole person.…”

“…6 There is a body of evidence in nursing and health care literature to suggest that spirituality is integral to patient's well-being. 3 The holistic approach to care is based on the premise that caring for the whole person constitutes the body, mind and spirit. Many nurses have difficulty to understand and integrate spiritual care into practice and consequently neglect this aspect of care.…”

History, Culture and Traditions: The Silent Spaces in the Study of Spirituality at the End of Life

“…Therefore, among various other branches of medicine, palliative care remains one of the leading healthcare disciplines heavily involved in research on spirituality [56,57]. These studies have employed a wide range of social science methodologies and tools in their attempt to understand spirituality, including grounded theory, phenomenology, narrative based and other qualitative approaches [58][59][60][61][62]. In addition, others have used quantitative methods in the study of spirituality in healthcare and in end of life care [3,30,63,64].…”