Models for Spiritual Care in Hospice and Palliative Care

Abstract

Spirituality is an essential part of human beings. Spiritual care, designed to meet the spiritual needs of terminally ill patients and their families, is one of the most important aspects of hospice and palliative care (HPC). This study reviewed and analyzed literature utilizing the most commonly used Korean and international healthcare databases to identify care models that adequately address the spiritual needs of terminally ill patients and their families in practice. The results of this study show that spirituality is an intrinsic part of humans, meaning that people are holistic beings. The literature has provided ten evidencebased theories that can be used as models in HPC. Three of the models focus on how the spiritual care outcomes of viewing spiritual health, quality of life, and coping, are important outcomes. The remaining seven models focus on implementation of spiritual care. The "whole-person care model" addresses the multidisciplinary collaboration within HPC. The "existential functioning model" emphasizes the existential needs of human beings. The "open pluralism view" considers the cultural diversity and other types of diversity of care recipients. The "spiritual-relational view" and "framework of systemic organization" models focus on the relationship between hospital palliative care teams and terminally ill patients. The "principal components model" and "actioning spirituality and spiritual care in education and training model" explain the overall dynamics of the spiritual care process. Based on these models, continuous clinical research efforts are needed to establish an optimal spiritual care model for HPC.

Developing a Model for the Establishment of the Hospice Care Delivery System for Iranian Adult Patients With Cancer

“…The literature has supplied numerous evidence-based models (such as quality of life, coping, the spiritual-relational view, …) that focus on spiritual care and can be used as models for providing spiritual care in these centers. The above results confirm the results of the present study ( Kang, 2018 ).…”

“…According to developed model, spiritual support is also one of the domains of comprehensive care in hospice centers and has a high feasibility. Kang (2018) stated based on the study of different models, spiritual care is one of the core components of hospice palliative care. The literature has supplied numerous evidence-based models (such as quality of life, coping, the spiritual-relational view, …) that focus on spiritual care and can be used as models for providing spiritual care in these centers.…”

Comparison of the Spiritual Needs of Terminal Cancer Patients and Their Primary Family Caregivers

“…Spirituality is the essence of human nature and is an external expression of the human spirit that seeks transcendental values, purpose and meaning in life, and a life full of peace and hope among relationships based on forgiveness and love [ 16 ]. Based on the nature of spirituality, spiritual needs can be characterized as 1) the need for meaning (to pursue the meaning and purpose of existence), 2) the need for connections (to exchange love and forgiveness), and 3) the need for religion and transcendence (to seek hope and transcendental values) [ 9 ]. As a result of administering the SpIRIT and SNs tools to patients with terminal cancer and their family members at 20 different national hospice centers each (in total, 40 centers), both patients and their family members ranked coherence, meaning, and religious and transcendental needs as their priorities, and this result has significant implications.…”

“…At the same time, the spiritual dimension, unique to human beings, influences the condition of the body and mind [ 8 ]. With the progression of the disease, the interests of patients with terminal illness move from pain and suffering to the meaning of suffering, the meaning of life, and the meaning of death [ 9 ]. Extant measurement tools for spiritual needs are based on spiritual characteristics of the general population; therefore, they are limited in assessing the specific needs of patients with terminal illness [ 10 ].…”