Nurses’ Perception of Spiritual Care Practices Among Hospitalized Patients: A Basis for a Program

Abstract

Abstract
 Introduction: Throughout hospitalization, patients place emphasis on health professionals to meet their spiritual and emotional needs. Since 1998, the National Inpatient Priority Index ranked emotional and spiritual needs as the patient's second priority. With evidence that shows the importance of spirituality in patient’s health, nurses have a pivotal role in providing spiritual care. The purpose of this study was to examine the perception of nurses of spiritual care practice among hospitalized patients.
 Methodology: The study used a descriptive research design to examine nurses’ perception of spiritual care practices among hospitalized patients. The study was conducted among registered nurses (RN) working in Ghana. Convenient sampling technique was used to select 180 registered nurses. The study adopted and modified Nurse Spiritual Care Therapeutic Scale developed by Mamier and Taylor (2015).
 Results: The respondents sometimes practice spiritual (m = 3.12, SD = 0.85). They often practice spiritual communication (m = 3.55, SD = 0.69). They sometimes render spiritual support (m = 2.67, SD = 0.88).
 Discussion: It can be concluded that spiritual care in terms of spiritual assessment and spiritual support was inadequate. Nurses provided adequate spiritual communication with the patients by actively listening to the patient’s illness story. A program under the theme Beyond the Physical was developed to address the problem of spiritual care among nurses. It is therefore recommended that further studies be done to examine whether the personal profile has a significant difference in the use of spiritual care.

Non-Pharmacological Pain Management Practice and Associated Factors Among Nurses Working at Comprehensive Specialized Hospitals

“…This implies that nurses' positive perceptions towards NPPM methods are the facilitator for good NPPM practice. This finding is congruent with the studies in Debre Tabor (Zeleke et al, 2021), Nigeria (Abimbola, 2021), and the Philippines (Antwi et al, 2019) that favorable attitude had a significantly positive association with good NPPM practice.…”

“…Pain assessment helps to determine the type of pain and effectiveness of pain management methods applied by reassessing after applying the methods and understanding the effectiveness of pain treatment methods helps to practice more. This finding is supported by the study (Antwi et al, 2019), which determined the statistically significant association between pain assessment practice and utilization of NPPM practices by nurses. This finding is also supported by studies done in Ethiopia (Ayenew et al, 2021;Melile Mengesha et al, 2022).…”

“…Various studies had determined usage of different NPPM approaches for pain management in different countries. A study undertaken in Philippines to determine extent of nurses' NPPM application for pain treatment showed that good number of nurses often use this practice (Antwi et al, 2019). Another study conducted in Turkey to examine knowledge and practice of nurses regarding NPPM practice had demonstrated that 62.4% of nurses apply NPPM practice (Tercan, 2017).…”

“…A study in Philippines had proven that nurses' good attitude towards NPPM and good pain assessment practice positively affects application of these practices (Antwi et al, 2019). Another research in Nigeria demonstrated that 65.7% of nurses' attitude was positive towards these practices of pain treatment and has significant association with utilization of NPPM (Abimbola, 2021).…”

“…The nurse’s socio-demographic characteristics, institution-related factors, nurses-related factors, and patient-related factors directly affect NPPM practice (Abimbola, 2021; Ali et al, 2013; Antwi et al, 2019; Gumus et al, 2020; Kerie et al, 2020; Khalil, 2018; Kia et al, 2021; Sisay, 2017; Zeleke et al, 2021) (Figure 1).…”