Providing spiritual care comes from various forms that involve meditation, fasting, praying, and rituals

Responses to Peers

Viccla

1 – For me, spiritual care is a form of reflection and reconnection between yourself and the higher power. Everyone has their own beliefs, religions, and traditions. For many people, faith is one of the main things they hold on to survive; it is something that keeps them going. Hence, attaining their spiritual needs can play a significant impact in terms of their overall functionalities. Our lives are guided by the faith we each of us chose to believe. Like the other aspects of human core (physical, mental, emotional), our spiritual needs also require some form of cultivation. Some of us who believe the essence of spirituality understand that fulfilling spiritual obligations prevent us from getting spiritual distress. When our soul is weary, reconnection within ourselves is necessary.

Providing spiritual care comes from various forms that involve meditation, fasting, praying, and rituals. Sometimes, being in a state of silence and lonesome shows taking some time to reconnect within ourselves. In healthcare settings, supporting and facilitating spiritual care is crucial not only for patients but also for healthcare workers. According to Keith A Evans, nurses who understand the importance of spirituality and faith can effectively fill in the gap and administer effective soul care to those in need. By understanding and providing interventions that help relieve spiritual distress, nurses can help reduce the patient’s worries and concerns, which allows for complete physical, emotional, and social well-being.

Gifoko

2- Spirituality is identified as a universal human characteristic, stripped of any particularities of content, class, culture, and religion. Just as psychological and social needs should be attended to in healthcare, so should spiritual needs be included. Spiritual care becomes something that should be available for all, for people of all faiths or none. Spiritual care refers to the provision of interventions that address patients’ spiritual care needs arising from particular circumstances or events to foster their spiritual well-being. It is a highly valuable component of overall nursing care. Spiritual care not only has a positive effect on patients’ mental health (depression and anxiety) and overall physical health (pain and function), but also improves their spiritual well-being, thereby promoting positive changes in quality of life. Considering that patients can experience needs for spiritual care in acute-care settings (life-threatening illness or surgery), as well as on their deathbed, the spiritual care needs of acute-care patients deserve more attention. However, there is a tendency for acute-care nurses to be much less attentive to spiritual nursing care than they are to physical nursing care, such as maintenance of respiration and circulation. In addition, they generally have lower levels of perception and provision of spiritual care than palliative-care nurses due to time constraints.

A variety of interventions are available to help patients meet their spiritual needs. Like other nursing skills, these interventions need to be practiced before they can be used confidently, competently, and at the right moment. This spirituality care goes in line with the topic reading because the context that human beings are inherently spiritual beings, have a need for spiritual care in whatever stage of life seems to offer considerable therapeutic benefits to both the recipients and the providers: patients experience peace of mind and recovery and caregivers accept the patient’ s diagnosis, while nurses recognize the provision of spiritual care as a rewarding experience. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance nurses’ competence in spiritual care by raising their awareness of the importance of spiritual care for helping patients find the meaning and purpose of life. However, while spiritual care has been considered as an important element of holistic nursing, nurses have low self-confidence in their capability to provide spiritual care. Furthermore, as they often think that competence in spiritual care is dependent on the provider’s spirituality and personal feelings, rather than being a knowledge-based domain of expertise, they frequently perceive spiritual care as a less specialized field in nursing.

Bergil

3-Spiritual care is that care which recognises and responds to the needs of the human spirit when faced with trauma, ill health or sadness and can include the need for meaning, for self worth, to express oneself, for faith support, perhaps for rites or prayer or sacrament, or simply for a sensitive listener.

Spiritual care has positive effects on individuals’ stress responses, spiritual well-being (ie, the balance between physical, psychosocial, and spiritual aspects of self), sense of integrity and excellence, and interpersonal relationships (1). Spiritual well-being is important for an individual’s health potential and the experience of illness/hospitalization can threaten optimum achievement of this potential. (Zehtab, S. September 20, 2014).

My definition of spiritual care is to meet spiritual needs of an individual, a patient or anyone I come across. This could be assisting someone with physical or emotional needs for healing. To help our patients with personal needs as nurses we need to know that we are public workers for public services. We also know that we will encounter many patients with different backgrounds, values, cultures and religions. They also have different beliefs and practices. As a result, with spiritual care nurses can help individuals according to their backgrounds, enhancing and boosting their coping skills, supporting them as much as they can especially during times of stress and sickness or for anyone who is going to a tough time.

My definition is close to what is given in the topic. Nurses need to ask open-ended questions to find out what the patient’s spiritual needs are in order to help them. Nurses also have to be culturally competent to apply what is needed to help each patient.

“It is important for nurses to be aware of the limits of their competence in undertaking spiritual assessment and providing spiritual care, and to refer patients to the healthcare chaplain or other spiritual support personnel where necessary” (Timmins, F., & Caldeira, S. 2017).

Prejoy

4- Most people practically function on the assumption that human spirituality exists, and every person possesses a spirituality, whether they fully recognize it or not. But a person’s spirituality is not by nature or by definition solely about religion or religiosity. Gilbert Fairholm (1997) explains, ‘One’s spirituality is the essence of who he or she is. It defines the inner self, separate from the body, but including the physical and intellectual self. Spirituality also is the quality of being spiritual, of recognizing the intangible, life-affirming force in self and all human beings. It is a state of intimate relationship with the inner self of higher values and morality. It is a recognition of the truth of the inner nature of people’ (p. 29). Spirituality has also been explained as an awareness of relationships with all creation or an appreciation of presence and purpose that includes a sense of meaning. Though not true generations ago, a distinction is frequently made today between spirituality and religion, the latter focusing on defined structures, rituals, and doctrines. One might state that spirituality stems from one’s inner consciousness and is the source behind the outward form of defined religious practices (Guillory, 2000). The spiritual care differs as it mainly focuses on the religious values and belief, this is included in the caring process to enhance the quality of care that is being delivered to the patients. It involves the self-worth realization, making them believe that everything will be fine, encouraging the patient for prayers, etc. This kind of care can provide hope, seeking betterment in health. When it comes to the topic readings I think my definition is close to the definition given which is to provide spiritual care as an integral part of caring for the patient as a whole with religion and spiritual care is a part of the nursing assessment (Shelly and Miller, 2006). However, not all healthcare professionals consider them to be religious or spiritual, so this can make it difficult to offer spiritual care such as offering a simple prayer or a reading, but it is an important component of the nursing care and recovery of a patient. Including a spiritual assessment tool when performing a full nursing assessment is important because it can then let the nurse know the patient’s beliefs and needs. Sometimes offering spiritual care just means listening to what the patient has to say attentively and with compassion, or it can mean praying with the patient, reading a bible passage, connecting the patient to chaplain services, clergyman, and/or spiritual leaders.

I am a Christian believer and religious when it comes to me, but I don’t force my belief into the patients. I do like to use the spiritual tool assessment on patients and go accordingly.

Eriqui

5- To me, spiritual care is best explained as one who shows respect, compassion, empathy, and dignity to others while in their care to assist with emotional, spiritual, or physical healing, no matter their race, religion, culture, or faith. Spirituality is the perspective of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and how they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and the significant or sacred (Evans, 2020). The best definition of one’s spirituality is “the essence of who he or she is. It defines the inner self, separate from the body, but including the physical and intellectual self (Evans, 2020). Spiritual care is attending to the person as a whole. According to Zehtab and Adib-Hajbaghery (2014), there are two interventions to provide spiritual care to patients, religious and nonreligious interventions. Religious interventions include treating patients’ by providing opportunities for connecting with their God and allowing them to express their values and beliefs without prejudice. Nonreligious interventions include the nurse’s presence for their patients and families, making eye contact, communicating, sympathizing, listening, being attentive, and showing love. I think my definition is close to our topic reading, as it discusses the importance of providing spiritual care as an essential part of caring for the patient as a whole, with religion and spiritual care being a part of the nursing assessment.

Gifoko

6.2 – Spirituality means different things to different people and it has a great impact on a person’s well-being and outlook on health care situations. We each always carry our own perspective with us. We tend to view the world through lenses we acquired in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. In addition, our religious education is sometimes taught with a certain flavor of “upmanship”; that is, we taught that our religious beliefs and practices are superior to all others. When you view your own experience as the norm or the preferred way of organizing the world, you turn to limit the range of care you provide to the patient who believe differently. Spiritual care demand nonjudgmental attitude and an open manner of thinking that invites rather than excludes.

When a patient’s spiritual beliefs are different from your own, you must be careful not to impose your beliefs on the patient or discount the importance of the patient’s beliefs and rituals. For example, if a client is near death, he and his family might be offended if their nurse inquires if they are “saved” Christians. By remaining focus on the patient’s needs to talk about meaning, salvation, or other end-of-life issues, you provide full spectrum spiritual care. Again, when the patient’s views are similar to yours, take care not to make false assumptions about his spiritual needs. Although you share some commonalities, this does not mean that you will have the same perspectives or needs in all areas of spirituality or religion. Source of strength is the value of religious faith that cannot be enumerated or evaluated easily but weakness will be fear that the knowledge base on patient beliefs are insufficient, and spiritual discussions may lead to generate problems.

Decisions about health care are becoming increasingly complex. Patients, family members, and health care professionals are voicing frustration as they grapple with complex decisions about prolong life. Some of the most difficult cases involve patients who are no longer able (competent) to indicate their treatment preferences. In such cases, advance care planning; the process of planning for the future care in the event one becomes unable to make decisions is the best decision tool that make sure a person’s wish is honored. This is also recommended for all adults, whatever their age or health status (Izumi, 2017, p.57).

 

Subject: Nursing

 

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