The spiritual care of the hospitalized patient: A nursing perspective

Document Type

Article

Publication Source

Journal of Religion, Disability and Health

Publication Date

1999-01-22

Volume

3

Issue

1

First Page

75

Last Page

97

Abstract

The resurgence of holistic care in health care delivery poses a challenge to today’s medical team. This is especially true for the nursing profession. Consequently, this poses a challenge for today’s nurse to not only care for his/her patient’s physical needs, but to attend to the psycho-spiritual aspects of the patient as well. This paper provides a training program for nurses to learn how to assess the spiritual needs of their patients. Based on a historical overview of nursing and the nursing process, it revisits the belief that the nursing profession’s foundation is rooted in ministry to the sick as a reflection of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Thus, with this challenge in place, nurses are called forth to use the nursing process to assess, implement and evaluate care plans to address the spiritual needs of the patients they care for on a daily basis. © 1999 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Holistic care, Nursing process, Spiritual assessment, Spirituality

DOI

10.1300/J095v03n01_11

https://doi.org/10.1300/J095v03n01_11

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