Spiritual Needs
Just like any other patient’s caring procedures and activities, spiritual care improves spiritual well-being and enhances the performance of a person as well as the quality of their spiritual life. Positive effects on an individual’s life can be attributed to spiritual care, interpersonal relationships, a sense of integrity, stress responses, excellence, and psychosocial aspects. Individuals’ optimal health and wellbeing are often greatly affected by spiritual wellbeing; however, this is always compromised by illness and hospitalization. It is, therefore, essential for professional nurses to embrace spiritual care in their daily practice of patient care to speed up the recovery process of patients.
Spiritual care is the act of giving patients purpose and meaning to live by enhancing belief in a higher and supernatural power that may instigate optimism, transcend physical and mindful constants, and seek steadfastness. Nursing practice in spiritual care can be categorized into two groups, including religious and non-religious spiritual care. In religious interventions, the patient’s religious beliefs are treated holistically without prejudice of their beliefs and values. While in non-religious practice, the nurses sympathize with the patients and their family members while providing services to them. This is done through direct eye contact, active listening, and showing love and enthusiasm to the patients and their families (Timmins, F., and Caldeira, S. 2017).
It is quite evident that nurses and other health care providers have very limited knowledge about spiritual care. Many times, the patient’s spiritual needs are not always met. Many reasons, including confusion of the staff about their role in spiritual care, time constraints, fear of patients’ reactions, cultural and religious differences, and lack of skills and confidence in this area, can be the biggest contributors to this (Cooper, K. L. et al., 2020)
Indeed, integrating spiritual care into the nursing scheme of work could meet many needs of the patient and hasten their recovery process. Therefore, more training should be done to help nurses meet the patient spiritual needs.
References
Cooper, K. L., Chang, E., Luck, L., & Dixon, K. (2020). How nurses understand spirituality and spiritual care: a critical synthesis. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 38(1), 114-121. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0898010119882153
Timmins, F., & Caldeira, S. (2017). Understanding spirituality and spiritual care in nursing. Nursing Standard, 31(22). https://journals.rcni.com/nursing-standard/understanding-spirituality-and-spiritual-care-in-nursing-ns.2017.e10311
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Question 
Spiritual Needs
What is your definition of spiritual care? How does it differ or accord with the description given in the topic readings? Explain.
Spiritual Needs