Teaching nursing students about spiritual care – A review of the literature

This paper examines that examines content, process and outcome of spirituality teaching programmes for nursing students. Increased secularisation in Europe and resulting ambivalent attitude towards spirituality and religion is contrasted with increased professional and public interest in this topic....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nurse education in practice 2013-11, Vol.13 (6), p.499-505
Main Authors: Timmins, Fiona, Neill, Freda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambivalence
Beliefs
Care
Care delivery
Care provision
Definitions
Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate - methods
Guidance
Humans
Individual Needs
Informal Assessment
Literature reviews
Methodological problems
National Standards
Nurses
Nursing
Nursing education
Nursing Education Research
Nursing Evaluation Research
Nursing Methodology Research
Nursing Students
Patients
Process Approach (Writing)
Public interest
Religion
Religiosity
Religious Factors
Secularization
Spirituality
Students
Teaching
Teaching - methods
Topics
Undergraduate Study
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Summary:This paper examines that examines content, process and outcome of spirituality teaching programmes for nursing students. Increased secularisation in Europe and resulting ambivalent attitude towards spirituality and religion is contrasted with increased professional and public interest in this topic. Additionally there are concerns that patient's spiritual needs are not being met and nurses are often ill equipped to provide this care. Nurses while positively disposed towards spiritual care delivery, and often carrying out spiritual care in practice, do so with little preparation. While teaching spiritual care to nursing students is advocated there is little research on this topic. A search was conducted using CINAHL database spanning the years 2007–2012 using the key words ‘spirituality’ and ‘education’. Three papers were identified that examined teaching approaches with nurses and nursing students. Due to methodological issues such as small sample sizes and limited testing generalising from these studies is difficult. Approaches used were firmly rooted in a religiosity framework. Further research is required, using rigorous approaches, examining the benefits of teaching approaches. Analysis of the need for spiritual education is also required. Issues that are of concern to educators are the definitions and understandings of spirituality, assessment and how, best to teach this topic.
ISSN:1471-5953
1873-5223
DOI:10.1016/j.nepr.2013.01.011