Yes, Virginia Henderson’s Nursing Need Theory identify spiritual component as one of the biophysical needs for a holistically and independently functional human being. Henderson identifies worship according to a person’s need as one of the fourteen components that constitute nursing activities in caring for a patient’s needs (Henderson and Nite, 1997) . A patient’s faith is an integral part of his/her psychological component. Henderson points out the influence of a patient’s cultural background and emotional stability on his/her health. Universality of religion makes it one of the most influential determinant of the patient’s health and also has implications on their emotional stability. As an integral component of a patient’s needs, it's therefore incumbent upon nurses to help patient’s to perform their religious worship as they would unaided do given healthy will, strength and knowledge. According to Henderson, the goal of the nurse is to help the patient not merely to recover from his/her illness, but to regain his/her independence to pursue and fulfill his/her biophysical needs including spiritual needs.
Religion indeed affects health outcomes as confirmed by the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson in his autobiography “Gifted Hands”. During his career as a neurosurgeon, Carson narrates of a couple who confessed to him about their search for a Christian neurosurgeon to do an operation on the couple’s son Christopher suffers from a brain tumor (Carson and Murphey, 2011) . Despite multiple specialists’ report of the incurability of the tumor, the couple’s faith in God healing their son convinces Carson to try the impossible. After two surgeries the child defies doctors’ reports and goes on to fully recover from the tumor.
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Similarly, the recovery of soldiers during the Crimean War rested more on their superstitious belief on the angelic statute of Florence Nightingale, the patriarch of modern nursing than the medication administered to them (Miller, 1991) . As confessed by one of the soldiers, Nightingale was like a ministering angel in the hospitals whose rounds in the hospitals in her characteristic slender physique holding a lamp gave softened and gave hope to the heart of the ailing soldiers. Her religious solitary rounds late into the night offered solace to the prostate sick soldiers after the doctors had given up on them and retired to bed.
References
Carson, B., & Murphey, C. (2011). Gifted hands: The Ben Carson story . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Henderson, V., & Nite, G. (1997). Principles and practice of nursing . New York: Macmillan.
Miller, B. (1991). Florence Nightingale: The lady of the lamp . Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House.
