A Thematic Review of the Spirituality Literature within Palliative Care (original) (raw)
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Integrating Spirituality as a Key Component of Patient Care
Religions, 2015
Patient care frequently focuses on physical aspects of disease management, with variable attention given to spiritual needs. And yet, patients indicate that spiritual suffering adds to distress associated with illness. Spirituality, broadly defined as that which gives meaning and purpose to a person's life and connectedness to the significant or sacred, often becomes a central issue for patients. Growing evidence demonstrates that spirituality is important in patient care. Yet healthcare professionals (HCPs) do not always feel prepared to engage with patients about spiritual issues. In this project, HCPs attended an educational session focused on using the FICA Spiritual History Tool to integrate spirituality into patient care. Later, they incorporated the tool when caring for patients participating in the study. This research (1) explored the value of including spiritual history taking in clinical practice; (2) identified facilitators and barriers to incorporating spirituality into person-centred care; and (3) determined ways in which HCPs can effectively utilize spiritual history taking. Data were collected using focus groups and chart reviews. Findings indicate positive impacts at organizational, clinical/unit, professional/personal and patient levels when HCPs include spirituality in patient care. Recommendations are offered.
What Spirituality Means for Patients and Families in Health Care
Journal of Religion & Health, 2018
This research focuses on the spiritual care experiences of patients and families at a hospital in Australia. Twenty-four patients and 10 family members were interviewed. Results indicate the importance of relatedness: being treated as a person, reminded of your capabilities and conversations about what matters. Maintaining contact with friends and family, sustaining religious and spiritual practices, music therapy and pet therapy were also significant and contact with the natural world and shared activities. The results indicate the importance of spirituality offered through pastoral care, and that all those involved in health care can contribute to the spiritually nurturing environment that reinforces healing. Keywords Spirituality and health care Á Patient and family experience of spirituality in health Á Roles in spirituality in health care This research seeks to strengthen understanding of the value of spiritual care offered in health settings. There is currently interest in developing and testing an Australian model that could evaluate whether and if so how spiritual care makes a difference to clients of health services, including acute and palliative care. Spiritual Health Victoria and La Trobe University in partnership with a number of Melbourne Health Services and St John of God Bendigo Hospital are aiming to facilitate the development of evidence-based spiritual care practice. We need then to identify what consumers, providers and their managers see as important and useful about spiritual care. More specifically, this includes: • facilitating the development of appropriate data collection about spiritual care provision within health care systems, recognising that spiritual care may be carried &
Toward a Fully Fledged Integration of Spiritual Care and Medical Care
Journal of pain and symptom management, 2018
In this article, we aimed to set out current problems that hinder a fully fledged integration of spiritual and medical care, which address these obstacles. We discuss the following five statements: 1) spiritual care requires a clear and inclusive definition of spirituality; 2) empirical evidence for spiritual care interventions should be improved; 3) understanding patients' experiences of contingency is paramount to deliver effective spiritual care; 4) attention to spiritual needs of patients is a task for every health care practitioner; 5) courses on spirituality and spiritual care should be mandatory in the medical curriculum. Current problems might be overcome by speaking each other's language, which is crucial in interdisciplinary research and in good interdisciplinary collaboration. Using a clear and inclusive definition of spirituality and substantiating spiritual care using medical standards of evidence-based practice is a way to speak each other's language and to...
Journal of pain and symptom management, 2017
The State of the Science in Spirituality and Palliative Care was convened to address the current landscape of research at the intersection of spirituality and palliative care and to identify critical next steps to advance this field of inquiry. Part II of the SOS-SPC report addresses the state of extant research and identifies critical research priorities pertaining to the following questions: 1) How do we assess spirituality? 2) How do we intervene on spirituality in palliative care? And 3) How do we train health professionals to address spirituality in palliative care? Findings from this report point to the need for screening and assessment tools that are rigorously developed, clinically relevant, and adapted to a diversity of clinical and cultural settings. Chaplaincy research is needed to form professional spiritual care provision in a variety of settings, and outcomes assessed to ascertain impact on key patient, family, and clinical staff outcomes. Intervention research require...
Spiritual Care in Palliative Care: A Physician’s Perspective
Religions
Palliative care is defined as ‘an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families who are facing problems associated with life-threatening illness. It prevents and relieves suffering through identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual’. As a palliative care physician, I aim to explore and meet the needs of my patients and their loved ones. As I am specifically trained as a specialist in assessing and treating ‘pain and other physical symptoms’, in psychological, social and spiritual issues, I am a generalist. Two approaches are described to assess spiritual needs in palliative care: The first is adjoining the analytic concept of the four dimensions of palliative care: using an instrument, measuring spiritual well-being or spiritual needs, and measuring the quality of life, with specific attention to spiritual issues. Second, a holistic approach is promoted, with openness to the patients’ n...
THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN CARE FOR ONCOLOGY PATIENTS: A REVIEW UNTIL 2024 (Atena Editora)
THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN CARE FOR ONCOLOGY PATIENTS: A REVIEW UNTIL 2024 (Atena Editora), 2024
Spirituality, although it is commonly associated with religion, is not restricted to it and must be understood as a universal human dimension, involving subjective values and allowing the individual their own search for meaning and existential reflection. The humanization of medicine, defended by the WHO and recommended by the SUS, must not be an exception in oncology services, where individual aspects, such as spirituality, must be respected and encouraged, whether by adding alternative/complementary practices to therapy, providing comfort and alleviating the emotional commitment, or providing support for bereaved family members. The objective of this study is to identify how spirituality can benefit cancer patient care. The work consists of a bibliographical review. Using the advanced search tool, a search was carried out using the keywords “Spirituality”, “Oncology” and “Cancer” in the PubMed, Cochrane Library and Scielo databases. Filters were used only for completeness and freeness of available studies, resulting in 49 articles. After reading the title, abstract and descriptors, 21 studies were excluded, leaving 28 studies for complete reading and analysis. All reviews analyzed highlight benefits arising from spirituality in the care of cancer patients, highlighting points such as improved quality of life, spiritual, emotional and subjective well-being; positive influence on coping with pain; positive changes in post-traumatic growth; increased sense of dignity, will to live and sense of purpose. However, one of the reviews highlights that religious beliefs can have negative influences on the patient. The report and series of cases corroborate the reviews, which verified the importance of recognizing the spiritual dimension in pain control, including in cases refractory to drug treatment, and giving new meaning to the process of death and symbolic pain, with an increase in quality of life. All observational and exploratory studies analyzed found benefits associated with spirituality in the management of cancer patients, although 03 of them found limitations and negative aspects associated with religious beliefs and customs. Spirituality is an important tool for cancer patients and their caregivers/family members, being able to provide them with positive feelings, such as hope and comfort, and alleviating negative aspects, such as grief, expectation and the symbolic pain of the inevitable outcome in some cases. cases, and must therefore be respected and encouraged whenever possible by multidisciplinary teams in oncology services.
Annals of Palliative Medicine, 2017
Background: Spirituality and spiritual care are well recognized as important facets of patient care, particularly in the palliative care population. Challenges remain, however, in the provision of such care. This study sought to compare patient and health care professional (HCP) views on spirituality/spiritual care, originally with a view to exploring a simple question(s) HCP's could use to identify spiritual distress, but evolved further to a comparison of how patients and HCPs were both concordant and discordant in their thoughts, and how this could lead to HCP's 'missing' opportunities to both identify spirituality/spiritual distress and to providing meaningful spiritual care. Methods: Patients (n=16) with advanced illnesses and HCP's (n=21) with experience providing care to those with advanced disease were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. Qualitative analysis was performed and responses were compared under specified categories (definitions of spirituality, spiritual distress and spiritual care, and screening for spiritual distress). Results: Within each category there were areas of both concordance and discordance. Most notably, HCP's struggled to articulate definitions of spirituality whereas patients generally spoke with much more ease, giving rich examples. Equally, HCP's had difficulty relating stories of patients who had experienced spiritual distress while patients gave ready responses. Key areas where HCP's and patients differed were identified and set up the strong possibility for an HCP to 'miss the moment' in providing spiritual care. These key misses include the perception that spiritual care is simply not something they can provide, the challenge in defining/ recognizing spirituality (as HCP and patient definitions were often very different), and the focus on spiritual care, even for those interested in providing, as 'task oriented' often with emphasis on meaning making or finding purpose, whereas patients much more commonly described spiritual care as listening deeply, being present and helping them live in the moment. Conclusions: Several discrepancies in perception of spirituality, spiritual distress and spiritual care may hinder the ability of HCP's to effectively offer meaningful spiritual care. A focus on active listening, being led by the patient, and by providing presence may help limit the risk of a disconnect, or a 'miss', in the provision of spiritual care.