Exploring how psychiatric nurses working with psychiatric clients in the eThekwini district understand the spiritual dimension of holistic psychiatric nursing practice : a descriptive phenomenological study.

TLDR: This qualitative study explored how psychiatric nurses working with psychiatric clients in the EThekwini District understand the spiritual dimension of holistic psychiatric nursing practice and identified four themes that emerged during the analysis of the data.

Abstract: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how psychiatric nurses working with psychiatric clients in the EThekwini District understand the spiritual dimension of holistic psychiatric nursing practice. Descriptive phenomenology informed the study design, data collection and analysis. Integrating spiritual and psychiatric care is an important contemporary issue for psychiatric nursing if the profession is to continue to define itself as a holistic and client-centered activity and to provide socially responsive care (Greasley et al 2001; Mohr, 2006). Local data about how nurses understand and practice spirituality in their working encounters with clients would be an important first step in enhancing holistic, patient-centered psychiatric nursing care in the South African context. Purposeful sampling was used to select the seven psychiatric nurses working in psychiatric settings in the EThekwini District. These participants were selected from the advanced psychiatric nursing classes of the School of Nursing of the University of KwaZulu-Natal for 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. Data were collected through in-depth interviews lasting for 45minutes to lhour and were audio-taped and later transcribed to facilitate easy analysis. The Colaizzi Method of data analysis and representation was utilized. The following four themes emerged during the analysis of the data. Each theme had between three and twenty one associated significant statements. Theme 1 revolved around the higher power of spirituality, religion and their relationship. The participants conceptualized spirituality in a variety of ways, linking spirituality to religion and to cultural values, daily moral and interpersonal experiences with self and others that provide direction and meaning in life. Spirituality was conceived of as "the glue that brings people together" and as a primary source of meaning making in daily life that provides people, nurses and patients with a sense of belonging and of joy, hope, and comfort in both difficult and happy times.