Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Joan Hahn

Abstract

Spiritual well-being is associated with several positive outcomes, including a greater tolerance of the emotional and physical demands of illness. Spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, yet nurses generally lack spiritual care knowledge and abilities and are often unable to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs. Therefore, nurses are in urgent need of relevant training to enhance their abilities to provide patients with spiritual care. Evidence-based education was lacking at the project site, a privately owned long-term care facility. Primary care attention was focused on the patients’ physical care; however, insufficient attention was being paid to spiritual care, which resulted in neglecting a broader view of health that was inclusive of spiritual care. The purpose of this project was to determine whether a staff educational training would increase nurses’ perceptions of their competencies to deliver spiritual care to patients in a long-term care setting. This project included a small sample of long-term care nurses (n = 6). The project used Watson’s caring theory, which is an explanatory, middle-range theory focused on human caring. Staff nurses completed 10 items from the Spirituality Care Competence Scale (SCCS) as a pretest evaluation of spiritual care competencies. A PowerPoint was followed by a second completion of the SCCS as a posttest evaluation of training effectiveness. From pretest to posttest, participants’ ratings of competencies for spiritual care delivery improved, as analyzed using descriptive statistics. The improved sense of competencies through education on the significant aspects of spiritual care may lead to nurses who affect a positive social change by providing patients with more holistic care that includes the support of their spirituality and increase their quality of life.

Download

Included in

Nursing Commons

Share

 
COinS