Patient’s spiritual needs are a crucial tenet of holistic care. Research indicates that responding to a patient’s spiritual needs helps to improve the quality of care (Selby et al., 2017). Spiritual needs in patients are reflected through factors such as the search for reassurance, comfort, and connection, the search for meaning, and the belief in religious practices, for example, prayer ( Yousefi & Abedi, 2011) . Patients expect that health practitioners will respond to their spiritual needs. In responding to their spiritual needs, patients have expectations of respect for their privacy and religious beliefs and practices, being reassured and comforted, and receiving empathy. Although spirituality and religion are not synonymous, they are interlinked. Consequently, spiritual care is often associated with the patient’s religious beliefs and practices. Spiritual care is essential in helping patients deal with their spiritual distress. Some of the religious traditions that some patients practice during spiritual distress include praying, reading scriptures, listening to sacred music, receiving pastoral care, and conducting religious rituals such as receiving the sacrament, amongst other practices ( O’Brien, 2017) . Patients expect that health practitioners will respect their spiritual practices. A patient may request that they prat together with the health practitioner, for example, the nurse.
Despite the varied spiritual care practices, spirituality is quite individual and dependent on the patient’s worldview. Healthcare practitioners are obligated to respect the patient’s view of spirituality. If I am an atheist patient from Russia, I would want the nurse to know that my spiritual view is not influenced by the belief in deities. I would want to inform the nurse that I believe my cause of illness is solely attributed to natural and scientific causes. Consequently, my healing would only be due to treatment and care practices based on science. As a patient, I would practice active listening and adherence to recovery practices recommended by the nurse. If the nurse were to disclose their spiritual beliefs, I would listen without being judgemental. I would expect that they would observe also be non-judgmental of my spiritual beliefs. Fitch and Bartlett (2019) argue that active listening to the patient’s spiritual beliefs without being judgemental is one way of improving the quality of care. O’brien (2017) and Sartori (2010) assert that being an atheist should not be a reason for exclusion from spiritual care. Atheist patients should receive spiritual care such as listening to their doubts, anxieties, fears, emotional support, and compassionate care.
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Response to Post 1
Your discussion is excellent! You have provided an elaborate discussion of spirituality from the patient’s perspective by citing Pentecostals as your example. The Pentecostals’ beliefs concerning healthcare, such as “gift to heal” and failure to use birth control methods, have enriched your discussion. Their spiritual belief in healing through western medicine and miracles is noteworthy for this discussion. The discussion also cites some religious practices, such as frequent prayers and praying with family members, as some of the spiritual practices that health practitioners may have to respect. The use of intext references to acknowledge the source of information used makes your discussion meet academic standards of integrity. You have met the assignment instructions. I could not find areas in which you could better the discussion; it’s excellent.
Response to Post 2
The discussion is great! You have discussed spirituality and its unique relationship with religious beliefs. Your statement on the individualized nature of spirituality depicts the variances in spiritual beliefs from one patient to another. Your choice of basing your discussion on an atheist patient is unique since it departs from the usual perspective of basing spirituality on religion. The integration of the origin of atheism in Russia and crediting the source providers readers with an opportunity to seek further information from your source. You have cited some of the challenges that atheists may face when seeking treatment from religious-affiliated hospitals, including not accessing some treatment options that they would prefer. You could have bettered your discussion by providing some spirituality details that atheists would want nurses to know. One of the examples that you could have cited is the belief in scientific healing and not religion.
References
Fitch, M., & Bartlett, R. (2019). Patient perspectives about spirituality and spiritual care. Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing , 6 (2), 111. https://doi.org/10.4103/apjon.apjon_62_18
O’Brien, M. E. (2017). Spirituality in nursing: Standing on holy ground (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Sartori, P. (2010, July 19). Spirituality 1: Should spiritual and religious beliefs be part of patient care? Nursing Times. Retrieved February 12, 2021, from https://www.nursingtimes.net/roles/nurse-managers/spirituality-1-should-spiritual-and-religious-beliefs-be-part-of-patient-care-19-07-2010/
Selby, D., Seccaraccia, D., Huth, J., Kurppa, K., & Fitch, M. (2017). Patient versus health care provider perspectives on spirituality and spiritual care: The potential to miss the moment. Annals of Palliative Medicine , 6 (2), 143-152. https://doi.org/10.21037/apm.2016.12.03
Yousefi, H., & Abedi, H. A. (2011). Spiritual care in hospitalized patients. Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research , 16 (1), 125–132.
