Spiritual support for terminally ill patients: nursing staff assessments

This study is part of a larger questionnaire survey concerned with the views of nursing staff on physical, emotional and spiritual support for terminally ill patients and decision making on the transition to the terminal phase of treatment. This article discusses the results concerning the spiritual support offered to terminally ill patients. The results describe the readiness and willingness of nursing staff to provide spiritual support, the expression of spiritual needs by patients, the provision of spiritual support, and problems occurring in providing this support. A total of 328 nurses working on the in-patient wards of 32 community health centres took part. Data were collected with a questionnaire including both multiple choice items and open-ended questions. The data were processed with SPSS software and the responses to the open-ended questions were interpreted using content analysis. The results revealed shortcomings in nurses' readiness and willingness to provide spiritual support and clearly highlighted the need for further training. Half of the nurses said they only rarely offered spiritual support to their patients. The nurses drew attention to problems within themselves, their patients and with the availability of the chaplain's services. The results also pointed to factors related to the health centre and nursing staff.