Spiritual care in health care professions

As per 2014, more than 70 medical schools in the United States offer courses on spirituality and medicine. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has co-sponsored, with the National Institute for Healthcare Research, 4 conferences, on curricular development in spirituality and medicine since 1997.[1]

Assessing spirituality

Asking patients questions about the meaning of life, their acceptance of their own or others' failures, and how they experience connectedness with others should have the goal of assessing how satisfied the patient is with the answers to these questions.[2] By developing personal relationships with their patients and their families, health professionals can better assess patients' spiritual situation.[3] Some examples of opening questions in a spiritual assessment are as follows:[4]

  • "Do you have a religious preference?"
  • "Are there any spiritual or religious practices that are important to you?"
  • "Would you like for us to contact your clergy member or religious advisor?".

Role of spirituality in illness

The prospect of death may lead a patient to deal with questions related to meaning of life, such as "Why is this happening to me?" or "Is there a God?"[5]

Self-care

Li and Shun (2016) focused on self care coping styles in patients with chronic heart failure found that spiritual and religious support affects heart failure patients coping with both physical and psychological self-care.[6]

Applications in health care

Third-party professional aid

Ill individuals and their families may request referrals for services such as a chaplain, psychologist, or social worker who can address their spiritual concerns. Providers who are uncomfortable accommodating an integrative approach to care should consult with other practitioners skilled in providing spiritual care, so that patients can integrate spiritual support into their own self-care.[7] The results showed that spiritual intelligence training had a positive effect on nurses’ competence in spiritual care. Also, 89% of the nurses who participated in the study had not been given any prior education regarding spiritual care. Nurses considered barriers to spiritual care including inadequate staff, cultural differences, high workload and lack of education on this subject.The development of spiritual care provided by nurses can result in various outcomes such as increased satisfaction with care in patients, reduced anxiety and symptoms of depression during hospitalization, reduced length of hospitalization and, in general, improved quality of life.[8]

Criticism

The concept of "spirituality" in health care has been criticised. Salander and Hamberg question the usefulness of Puchalsky's definition:

A prerequisite for a meaningful concept is that it is demarcated in relation to other concepts. Puchalski and colleagues' conceptualization of spirituality lacks this demarcation – it unfortunately qualifies as an example of what Sartori called "conceptual stretching." It becomes a popular catch-all term – it means everything and, therefore, nothing.[9]

See also

References
  1. Puchalski, Christina M.; Blatt, Benjamin; Kogan, Mikhail; Butler, Amy (January 2014). "Spirituality and Health". Academic Medicine. 89 (1): 10–16. doi:10.1097/ACM.0000000000000083. PMID 24280839.
  2. Potter, Mertie L., and Mary D. Moller. Psychiatric mental health nursing: from suffering to hope. Boston, Pearson, 2016.
  3. Wright, L. (2005). Spirituality, Suffering, Illness. Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis, p. xviii.
  4. Potter, Mertie L., and Mary D. Moller. Psychiatric mental health nursing: from suffering to hope. Boston, Pearson, 2016.
  5. Puchalski, Christina M. (October 2001). "The role of spirituality in health care". Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center). 14 (4): 352–357. doi:10.1080/08998280.2001.11927788. PMC 1305900. PMID 16369646.
  6. Li, Chia-Chien; Shun, Shiow-Ching (13 February 2015). "Understanding self care coping styles in patients with chronic heart failure: A systematic review". European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. 15 (1): 12–19. doi:10.1177/1474515115572046. PMID 25681369.
  7. Clayton-Jones, Dora; Haglund, Kristin (23 June 2016). "The Role of Spirituality and Religiosity in Persons Living With Sickle Cell Disease". Journal of Holistic Nursing. 34 (4): 351–360. doi:10.1177/0898010115619055. PMID 26620813.
  8. Riahi, S.; Goudarzi, F.; Hasanvand, S.; Abdollahzadeh, H.; Ebrahimzadeh, F.; Dadvari, Z. (2018). "Assessing the Effect of Spiritual Intelligence Training on Spiritual Care Competency in Critical Care Nurses". Journal of medicine and life. 11 (4): 346–354. doi:10.25122/jml-2018-0056.
  9. Salander, Pär; Hamberg, Katarina (November 2014). "Why 'Spirituality' Instead of 'The Humanistic Side of Medicine'?". Academic Medicine. 89 (11): 1430. doi:10.1097/ACM.0000000000000492. PMID 25350326.
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