The Role of the Nurse in Providing Spiritual Care
The role of the nurse in providing spiritual care is to take into consideration the whole body, which includes physical and emotional needs. Patients may or may not have religious affiliation, but when sick, existential questions might arise. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHP) as per tnbutterfly …show more content…
C. (2001) talks of the many studies which have proven that if the spirit is low, a stay at the hospital can be longer as the will of the patient is not in the fight. It could be that the patient is worried about her pet that she has left home to be cared by a neighbor; it could be his garden that no one will be available to water since it is such a hot summer.
There are no trainings to help nurses provide spiritual care. The nurse might not feel comfortable doing so, feeling inadequate in this role if the nurse is Christian, Muslim or
Buddhist. The nurse would then refer the patient to the hospital’s chaplain. The specialist may not be available at the time the request is made. She might not be attentive to such a need for the patient might not know themselves that their spirit is in chaos and that help is needed to make sense of it. A treatment might not work because the spirit is down, which can lead to depression. A patient might react in anger at everything that the nurse is doing, not knowing why she or he is reacting in such manner. The nurse might in turn provide basic care not understanding that there is an underlying reason for the behavior and it would take very little to get the patient to open up and improve the relationship between …show more content…
The nurse may find herself or himself in disciplinary action although her or his intention were pure into promoting the patient’s health.
Nurses may also feel a lack of time to properly support a patient during a time of spiritual need as the acuity of patient care is higher than before. As the nurse is trying to follow doctor’s orders and make sure that all her or his patients are comfortable, she or he might not be able to identify that there are spiritual needs to be met. If she or he was able to identify one or all, she or he might have too many physical needs to address to be able to tend to one which causes no physical pain. Thus, not all of the patient needs are met to help toward wellness.
The spirit is a strong motivator towards healing. Just as hospitals have started to integrate cultural competency learning (Sensor C. S. 2006) for the workers to provide better care, they should also add spiritual guidance classes. The nurses would then be better equipped to help their patients heal