The Influence of Spirituality on Professional Identity, Role Performance, and Career Resilience among Nursing Home Social Workers

This paper explores how social workers integrate personal spirituality within nursing homes, where a highly regulated, stressful environment marginalizes professional identity and challenges retention. Researchers offer new evidence of how spirituality informs professional identity, ethical practice...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of gerontological social work 2024-04, Vol.67 (3), p.306-321
Main Authors: Rogers, Robin K., Myers, Dennis R., Garrison, Brianna V., Singletary, Jon E., McClellan, Angela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affinity
Ambiguity
Careers
Enactment
Ethics
Humans
Moral education
Nursing Home
Nursing Homes
Professional identity
Professional training
Qualitative research
Resilience
Resilience, Psychological
Skilled Nursing Facilities
Social work education
Social Workers
Spirituality
Stressful environment
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper explores how social workers integrate personal spirituality within nursing homes, where a highly regulated, stressful environment marginalizes professional identity and challenges retention. Researchers offer new evidence of how spirituality informs professional identity, ethical practice, and continuation in the role. Twenty BSW/MSW licensed nursing home social workers (NHSWs) reported how they daily navigate the personal spirituality-at-work opportunity and challenge. Qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews resulted in three primary codes and related subcodes: Spirituality-Integrated Professional Identity (Vocational Affirmation and Value Alignment), Spirituality-Informed Practice (Intervention Asset, Relational Affinity, and Ambiguous Boundaries), and Spiritually-Sustained Career Resilience. Respondents reported how spirituality animated professional identity, informed daily role enactment, and sustained role involvement. Recommendations are provided for normalizing ethical spirituality-at-work through social work education and practical guidance in navigating the spirituality and practice space.
ISSN:0163-4372
1540-4048
DOI:10.1080/01634372.2023.2262007