Aim. This paper presents the preliminary descriptive findings from an online survey commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing to ascertain members’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care.

Background.  There is a professional requirement for nurses to achieve competence in the delivery of spiritual care and to assess and meet the spiritual needs of their patients. Recently, the area of spirituality has come under criticism bringing into question the role of the nurse with regard to the provision of spiritual care.

Design.  A descriptive online survey was conducted with all Royal College of Nursing members to obtain their perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care in an attempt to identify what action they feel is required with regard to this aspect of nursing practice.

Method.  An online survey consisting of a five-part questionnaire was developed incorporating the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale. Members were asked to complete the survey during a three-week period in March 2010.

Results.  Overall, 4054 Royal College of Nursing members responded, making this probably the largest UK survey ascertaining nurses’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care. Descriptive statistics, frequencies and percentages were used to identify key findings. A Cronbach’s alpha of 0·80 was obtained for the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale. The preliminary analysis confirms that nurses across the full health economy in the United Kingdom consider spirituality to be a fundamental aspect of nursing.

Conclusion.  The findings indicate that nurses recognise that attending to the spiritual needs of patients enhances the overall quality of nursing care. However, despite all the attention given to the spiritual dimension, the majority of nurses still feel that they require more guidance and support from governing bodies to enable them to support and effectively meet their patients’ spiritual needs.

An online survey of nurses’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care

It is clear from polls of the general public that religion and spirituality are important in most people’s lives. In addition, the spiritual and religious landscape is becoming increasingly diverse, with nearly a fifth of people unaffiliated with a religion, and increasing numbers of people identifying themselves as spiritual, but not religious. Religion and spirituality have been empirically linked to a number of psychological health and well-being outcomes, and there is evidence that clients would prefer to have their spirituality and religion addressed in psychotherapy. However, most often, religious and spiritual issues are not discussed in psychotherapy, nor are they included in assessment or treatment planning. The field of psychology has already included religion and spirituality in most definitions of multiculturalism and requires training in multicultural competence, but most psychotherapists receive little or no training in religious and spiritual issues, in part because no agreed-on set of spiritual competencies or training guidelines exist. In response to this need, we have developed a proposed set of spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists based on (1) a comprehensive literature review, (2) a focus group with scholars and clinicians, and (3) an online survey of 184 scholars and clinicians experienced in the integration of spiritual and religious beliefs and practices and psychology. Survey participants offered suggestions on wording for each item, and a subset of 105 licensed psychotherapists proficient in the intersection of spirituality/religion and psychology rated clarity and relative importance of each item as a basic spiritual and religious competency. The result is a set of 16 basic spiritual and religious competencies (attitudes, knowledge, and skills) that we propose all licensed psychologists should demonstrate in the domain of spiritual and religious beliefs and practices.

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Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists.

Student nurses perceptions of spirituality and competence in delivering spiritual care: a European pilot study.

Aims
This paper provides an overview of 80 papers on research into spiritual care in nursing between 2006 and 2010, to enable nurses and nurse managers to make use of evidence available to them to improve quality of care and implement best practice.

Background
Research into spiritual care has grown rapidly since a review of the field in 2006.

Evaluation
The CINAHL database was used to search for ‘spirituality’ OR ‘spiritual care’ AND ‘nursing, looking for original research papers involving health-care practitioners.

Key issues
Research is discussed in the following themes: nursing education; care of health-care practitioners, including nurses; descriptive and correlational research; assessment tools used in research; palliative care and oncology; culture and spiritual care research. Future research should take into account the risks of research that does not involve patients and the need for research that is translatable into contexts other than the setting under study.

Implications for nursing management
Spiritual care research has implications for staff training and education, staff motivation and health, organisational culture, best practice, quality of care and, most importantly, for the health of patients. Nurse managers, and indeed all involved in management of nursing, should use this growing body of evidence to inform their spiritual care training, planning and delivery.

Spiritual care in nursing: an overview of published international research.

Introduction: Diagnosis of cancer can cause huge spiritual crisis in a person and affect different aspects of life. At this stage, patients have certain spiritual needs. Aim: This study was conducted to explain spiritual needs of cancer patients in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this qualitative study, 18 cancer patients, referred to the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran were selected using purposive sampling method, and their spiritual needs emerged out of conventional content analysis of interviews conducted with them. Results: From 1850 initial codes, 4 themes (connection, peace, meaning and purpose, and transcendence) were identified that contained categories of social support, normal behavior, inner peace, seeking forgiveness, hope, acceptance of reality, seeking meaning, ending well, change of life meaning, strengthening spiritual belief, communication with God, and prayer. Conclusions: Spiritual needs of cancer patients should be recognized, realized, and considered in care of patients by the medical team. An all-out support of health system policy makers to meet patients' spiritual needs is particularly important.

Mark Gretton

Papers

The ethical basis of teaching spirituality and spiritual care: a survey of student nurses perceptions.

Making Integrated eCare a Reality in the UK: Past Failures, Current Successes, and Future Challenges