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Spiritual distress-proposing a new definition and defining characteristics
Sílvia Caldeira1, Emília Campos Carvalho2, Margarida Vieira3
1The Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal.
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 misses some DCs that emerged from the literature review and lacks comprehensiveness. The domain and the class are reductionist toward its meaning. The taxonomy lacks a spiritual domain to include this and other diagnoses currently dispersed in other domains.
Implications For Practice:
Further content and clinical validation is needed, as well as an assessment, to determine the diagnosis' class and domain.
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