Discerning the healing path - how nurses assist patient spirituality in diverse health care settings
Skrevet af Tove Giske PhD, MPhil, RN, & Pamela H Cone PhD, CNS, RN, , den 2. august 2015
Aims and objectives. To examine nurses' experiences in spiritual care in diverse
clinical settings, preferably not palliative care.
Background. Spirituality is part of holistic nursing care. The concept of spiritual
literacy is introduced as the nurse's ability to read the spiritual signs of the human
experience.
Design. Classical grounded theory methodology with open and selective coding
was used to identify the participants' main concern and the strategies they used to
resolve it, and to develop a substantive grounded theory.
Method. Data were collected in 2008 and 2014 during eight focus group inter-
views with a total of 22 nurses recruited from a master's programme, postgradu-
ate programmes and a local hospital. Data were analysed through constant
comparison until the grounded theory emerged.
Results. The participants' main concern was how to assist the patient to allevia-
tion. The participants resolved this by Discerning the healing path, which com-
prises three stages: Tuning in on spirituality, Uncovering deep concerns and
Facilitating the healing process. These three stages are accompanied all the way
by the participants' Willingness to overcome own comfort zone and Building a
trusting relationship.
Conclusion. Spirituality is of relevance for all areas of nursing care, not just dying
patients or those in palliative care. Spirituality relates to the deep and important
things in life and affects how patients face health issues. Nurses attend to spiritu-
ality in patients because the pain of the soul touches them and the calmness of
spiritual peace amazes them.
Relevance to clinical practice. The professional culture in the health care team so-
cialises nurses into the workplace, and leaders need to pay close attention to how
they can foster openness to spiritual matters. The personal and professional matu-
rity of the nurse is fundamental to his or her willingness and ability to overcome
own comfort zone.
Key words: clinical practice, existential care, nurse-patient relationship, nursing
intervention, qualitative method, spiritual care.
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