The Invisibility of Spiritual Nursing Care in Clinical Practice

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Spirituality has been identified as the essence of being human and is recognized, by many health care professionals, as a central component in health and healing. Scholars have identified spiritual nursing care as essential to nursing practice and include caring for the human spirit through the development of relationships and interconnectedness between the nurse and the patient. However, despite the recognition of spiritual practices as important to health, little attention has been given to spirituality in nursing practice and education in the literature. The purpose of this article is to explore factors contributing to the invisibility of spiritual nursing care practices (SNCP), recognition and offer strategies to enhance the visibility of SNCP. Two major factors that reduce visibility of SNCP are conceptual confusion differentiating between spirituality and religion and limited education in the area of spirituality including nursing curricula and organizations. Strategies to enhance visibility of SNCP include educational approaches in nursing curricula and health care organizations. to influence nurses’ perceptions about spirituality and creation of a culture of spiritual care. Conclusion: Holistic nursing includes assessing and responding to the spiritual needs of patients. Changes in nursing education and health care systems are needed to increase the visibility of SNCP.

Religiosity and spirituality in mental health: nurses’ training, knowledge and practices

“…The training of these professionals must envision a multiplicity of views and knowledge regarding religious and spiritual issues (18) . However, during an analysis of aspects of the use of R/S in healthcare, it was found that the nurses interviewed do not consider themselves properly prepared and safe to give their opinion and/ or practice practices that address the religious and spiritual view of people, in due to little or no training on the subject.…”

“…Spiritual care helps nursing practice while enabling the development of a connection with the person, promoting their well-being through the feeling of support that is offered to them. However, barriers to the insertion of spiritual nursing care in clinical practice are still perceived, resulting from professionals' lack of knowledge as well as the lack of preparation to carry out this care (18) .…”

Promoting Spiritual Well-Being Among Nurses

“…Nurses can integrate spirituality in daily nursing care to “support patient healing by alleviating anxiety, instilling hope, and helping patients attain inner peace.” 33 (p.153) Health care organizations can implement methods to enable nurses to provide spiritual care, which is an intangible skill that can be introduced to them during orientation. 31 One method is to leverage the power of electronic health record documentation through the inclusion of a spiritual assessment at the time of hospital admission.…”

“…32 The integration of spiritual education in nurse residency programs and orientations is an organizational-level strategy to foster a culture of spiritual care in which the spiritual needs of patients are recognized and fulfilled. 33 As spiritual competencies may or may not be taught during a nurse’s formal education, it is contingent on the organization to incorporate spirituality into new nurse orientation. This component establishes spiritual competencies as part of the organizational culture.…”

Divinity in nursing: The complexities of adopting a spiritual basis for care

“…Apart from the faith-based origins of nursing, many modern nursing theories also demonstrate a foundation in acceptance of the divine, and the uncertainty of human knowledge. Uncertainty, and complexity in understanding the human condition and psychosocial health-related behaviours have been used extensively as arguments to justify more spiritually focused approaches to nursing (Hawthorne & Gordon, 2020). Some key example of this can be seen in the postmodern works of Martha Rogers (1914Rogers ( -1994 Griffin et al, 2021;McElligott et al, 2018aMcElligott et al, , 2018bRosa et al, 2019;Shields et al, 2017;Turkel et al, 2018).…”