Spiritual Care for Chronic Illness Patients: Experiences of Professional Nurses
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Date
2010-04-01
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Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council
Abstract
Spiritual care for chronic illness patients was an important dimension in health that professional nurses played a critical role. This qualitative research aimed to explore professional nurses’ experiences in spiritual care for chronic illness patients. Informants were seven professional nurses, who worked at medical ward in a hospital of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The data were collected during October 2006 to April 2007 by in-depth interviews and non-participant observation. Content analysis was adopted to analyze the data. Results of this study showed that experiences of spiritual care for chronic illness patients as perceived by professional nurses could be encapsulated in four main themes. 1) The meaning of spiritual care as the care follows the belief and dogma, care with love, care with kindness, care with gentleness and regard, and care as if relatives. 2) The important of spiritual care such as sources of spirit, supporting and trusting, making happiness, fostering self-esteem, and acknowledging one’s condition. 3) The guidelines of spiritual care were five aspects such as assessing about the belief and religious faith, giving a chance to perform a ceremony activities, facilitating patients for religious practices, encouragement and giving the relatives to participate in patient care. 4) There were two factors that affected spiritual care including the part of nurses and patients. The awareness, the experiences, the happiness in the work, working as a team, the senior nurse model, and nurse responsibility were the factors of nurses. Also, the trustworthiness and the contentment of patients were factors of patients.
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Thai Journal of Nursing Council; Vol.24 No.1 January-March 2009; 62-76