Practices and Barriers of Spiritual Nursing Care Among Nurses in the Acute Care Unit: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the practices and barriers of spiritual nursing care among registered nurses in the acute care setting like emergency room in a private, non-sectarian hospitals in Laguna. A self constructed semi-structured questionnaire pertaining the nurses’ understanding of spiritual nursing care, their practices of spiritual nursing care and the hindrances to its practice was used to interview the participants. In analyzing the data and extracting the findings, Clark and Braun thematic analysis process was used. Based on the findings of the study, it emerged that spiritual nursing care was seemingly complex and differently understood by nurses yet they recognized that it can be emphazised by giving patients a holistic care through offering prayer, providing words of encouragement and respecting the patient’s beliefs. However, provision of spiritual nursing care in the acute care unit is inadequate and remains to be a challenging component of patient care because of lack of time, different beliefs of the patient and it’s consideration as of least priority in the acute care unit, among others. It is indicated that although there’s a shared understanding of spirituality and spiritual care among nurses, contextual factors, like the working area of the nurses, play a role in the type of spiritual nursing care intervention selected.