Nurses’ Perception of Spiritual Care Practices Among Hospitalized Patients: A Basis for a Program

Throughout hospitalization, patients place emphasis on health professionals to meet their spiritual and emotional needs. Since 1998, the National Inpatient Priority Index ranked emotional and spiritual needs as the patient's second priority. With evidence that shows the importance of spirituality in patient’s health, nurses have a pivotal role in providing spiritual care. The purpose of this study was to examine the perception of nurses of spiritual care practice among hospitalized patients. The study used a descriptive research design to examine nurses’ perception of spiritual care practices among hospitalized patients. The study was conducted among registered nurses (RN) working in Ghana. Convenient sampling technique was used to select 180 registered nurses. The study adopted and modified Nurse Spiritual Care Therapeutic Scale developed by Mamier and Taylor (2015). The results showed that the respondent’s practices in terms of spiritual assessment were scaled as sometimes (M=3.12, SD=0.85). The respondent’s practices in terms of spiritual support were scaled as sometimes (M=2.62, SD=0.88). The respondent’s practices in terms of spiritual communication were scaled as often (M=3.55, SD=0.69). In examining the nurses' overall spiritual care practice, it was noted that the respondent’s practices in terms of spiritual care were scaled at sometimes (M=3.12, SD=0.707). It can be concluded that spiritual care in terms of spiritual assessment and spiritual support was inadequate. Nurses provided adequate spiritual communication with the patients by actively listening to the patient’s illness story. A program under the theme “Caring beyond the Physical” was developed to address the problem of spiritual care among nurses. It is recommended for administrators and clinical nursing educators to utilize this research and program in providing ongoing training for nurses in providing spiritual care. Secondly, further studies are recommended to be done to examine whether the personal profile has a significant difference in the use of spiritual care.