Abstract
Healthcare involves caring for individuals in a person-centered and compassionate way. This means nurses, and indeed all those providing care, supporting and attending to the holistic needs of the person—physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually. This chapter explores what is meant by the concepts of spirituality and spiritual needs with a specific focus upon the role of the nurse. The spiritual dimension of the person has been integrated within some nursing theories and models but the challenge many nurses face in frontline clinical care is applying these concepts in practice. It is not surprising then that over the past two decades nurses have called for more education to prepare them for this aspect of their role. Research has shown that education can play an important part in ensuring that nurses feel more confident and competent to support patients with their spiritual needs. The chapter seeks to dispel some of the myths that attending to the spiritual needs of patients takes more time, offering suggestions on how to integrate spiritual care within everyday practice.
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Notes
- 1.
Spiritual Care Competence Questionnaire (SCCQ) available from https://www.spiritual-competence.net Accessed 14 September 2020
- 2.
Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (SpNQ) available from www.spiritualneeds.net Accessed 16 September 2020
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Ross, L., McSherry, W. (2021). Relevance of Addressing Spiritual Needs for Clinical Support: Nursing Perspective. In: Büssing, A. (eds) Spiritual Needs in Research and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70139-0_29
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