Spiritual care is increasingly being recognised as an essential component of healthcare practice. Peoplewith life-limiting illness and those who are recently bereaved are particularly likely to require this type of care. This article identifies some of the practical ways in which nurses can identify, support and assist people to meet their spiritual care needs.

CONTEXT Spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual pain may affect advanced cancer patients' symptom expression, coping strategies, and quality of life. OBJECTIVES To examine the prevalence and intensity of spirituality, religiosity, and spiritual pain, and how spiritual pain was associated with symptom expression, coping, and spiritual quality of life. METHODS We interviewed 100 advanced can...

The development and the organization of chaplaincy in the European context are very diverse. The religious history and the culture of a country are the most determining factors. Still an increasing trend towards professionalism is noticeable. The number of professional associations for chaplains, for example, is growing. The need for professional chaplaincy is founded on the paradigm of whole p...

BACKGROUND Spiritual well-being is an important dimension of quality of life (QOL) and is a core component of quality oncology and palliative care. In this analysis, we aimed to describe spiritual well-being outcomes in a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-supported Program Project that tested the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary palliative care intervention in lung cancer patients and their ...

Although the concept 'spiritual nursing care' has its roots in the history of the nursing profession, many nurses in practice have difficulty integrating the concept into practice. There is an ongoing debate in the empirical literature about its definition, clarity and application in nursing practice. The study aimed to develop an operational definition of the concept and its application in cli...