Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
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Nurses experiences of delivering spiritual care to patients in
an Irish hospice palliative care unit.
1. Maria Bailey RGN. RNT. NDN. ONC BSc(Hons) MSc. Dept of
Nursing and Midwifery University of Limerick, Castletroy,
Limerick
Email maria.bailey@ul.ie
Phone: 00353 61 202700 Direct Line: 233687
Work Location at time of research: Education Dept, Milford Care
Centre, Castletroy, Limerick
2. Suzanne Moran. RGN. BNS Milford Care Centre, Castletroy,
Limerick
3. Margaret Graham. RGN.SCM. BNS. MSc. Dept of Nursing and
Midwifery University of Limerick Castletroy, Limerick
Aim of the study
To described nurse’s experiences of delivering spiritual care to
patients in an Irish hospice/ palliative care unit.
Methodology
In a qualitative descriptive design the experiences of 22
purposefully sampled nurses were described using semi-structured
interviews.
Analysis
Data analysis was facilitated by Burnard’s (1991) Framework for
Data Analysis.
Summary of key findings
Responses indicate that the concept appears to be at the very
essence of nursing in palliative care and is rated as a very
significant component of holistic nursing. Challenges of note in
spiritual caring were described as the complexity of the concept
often resulting in undocumented assessments, conflict between
religion and spirituality and the concept of time, timing of
interventions and time management within finite resources.
Conclusions
The findings of this study indicate that while nurses rate their role in
spiritual care highly, their work poorly recorded in nursing
documentation and may therefore be undervalued by others. A need
for further research in identifying a method of documenting spiritual
care without reducing its essence to a ‘tick box’ is required.
Key words: spirituality; spiritual care; palliative care; religion;
culture and religion; patient assessment
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