An essential part of end-of-life medical care, spiritual care allows physicians to recognize problems like meaninglessness, anguish, and hopelessness, for which effective interventions are available. This form of care can be a deeply rewarding area of medical practice.

There has been a variety of different ideas on the subject of Christian approach to the social order. These range from the extreme of maintaining complete non-involvement to the extreme of wholehearted committal. The former is based on the contention that Christianity is spiritual and not social, because the gospel deals essentially with man’s spiritual problems. The latter extreme maintains a ...

CONTEXT Suffering is a complex experience. Identifying its predictors is useful to signal at-risk patients. OBJECTIVE To identify suffering predictors in patients with advanced cancer in palliative care. METHODS A total of 98 patients participated in the study. A semistructured interview examining suffering levels and physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects was used. Instrume...

OBJECTIVE To identify the definition and defining characteristics (DCs) of spiritual distress (00066). METHOD Integrative literature review. RESULTS Thirty-seven articles and 35 DCs were identified. Spiritual distress as a response to health problems in the context of nursing care is different from an impaired ability to experience and integrate meaning in life. CONCLUSIONS The diagnosis ...

BACKGROUND Spiritual well-being has been lauded to exert a protective effect against suicidal behavior. This study examines the characteristics of spiritual functioning and their association with a self-reported history of suicidal thoughts and behavior in a sample of Veterans being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). METHODS The sample includes 472 Veterans admitted to a PTSD ...

Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of human death. Besides clinical treatment, cancer patients may need emotional and spiritual counselling to overcome their mental and morale problems. Such counselling sessions have been reported influential by many patients. We aimed to explore the structure of spiritual counselling sessions and their content as one of services provided to patien...

OBJECTIVE To explore a potential role for spirituality in medication-related needs assessment for integrated care in chronically ill populations. METHOD A systematic literature review was conducted to explore the impact of faith beliefs on health and/or medication adherence in individuals with depression and/or HIV+/AIDS. Retrospective electronic medical record review of adult HIV+ patients o...

Introduction: The diagnosis of cancer involves the patients, their caregivers, and families. Caregivers should obtain guidance from health care professionals to promote care facilities. The current study aimed at investigating the economic, socio-individual, informational, and psycho-spiritual problems of caregivers in post-treatment phase of breast cancer. Methods: The present descriptive stu...

Chaplaincy Today • Volume 23 Number 2 • Autumn/Winter 2007 Medical practitioners and researchers continue to explore the association between spiritual/religious (SR) concerns and illness and medical care. Koenig et al. summarize over 1600 publications that describe this relationship. In a previous publication, we reported the statistically significant web of associations between the personal/pr...

background: breast cancer is considered as the most common as well as most effective malignancy in adult female population. it leads to deep psychological and emotional problems such as depression. although findings of numerous studies revealed a significant relation between spiritual well-being and depression in cancer patients, some reasons such as paradoxical findings in foreign researches a...