Personal Beliefs and Values to End of Life Care

This essay discusses the importance of a holistic approach to end of life care and how personal beliefs and values can impact interactions with palliative patients. It explores the benefits of a holistic approach, including improved communication and understanding of the patient's needs, and the challenges that personal beliefs and values can pose to effective care. The essay concludes with a call for nurses to appreciate the importance of a holistic approach to palliative care.

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Personal Beliefs and Values to End of Life Care
Palliative care is an essential medical and nursing care for improving quality of life of persons
with life-limiting illness. Palliative care refers to a specialized nursing and medical care for
patients with life limiting health conditions (Glaser, & Strauss, 2017). The palliative care
provides relief to patients that improve their quality of life. Palliative care has a role in relieving
patients’ suffering and their families through a holistic assessment and treatment of psychosocial,
physical, and spiritual symptoms. Personal values and beliefs shape palliative care provider
interactions that are important to delivering effective palliative care. The following essay a self
reflection that explains how to provide best holistic end of life care to a person while managing
personal values and beliefs and their effect to interaction with a patient.
Holistic end of life care is a comprehensive approach for assessing and treating persons in their
last days of living. A holistic approach aims at assessing and treating the physical, spiritual, and
psychosocial aspect of a palliative patient. The approach recognizes that patients are human
beings and are made up of mind, body and the spirit. Balboni et al. (2016) defined holistic end of
life care as a comprehensive care that acknowledges and recognizes a person as a whole and
there exist interdependency among one’s social, psychological, biological, and spiritual aspects.
A holistic care approach has to include medication, communication, self-help, education and
complimentary treatment (Morton, Fontaine, Hudak, & Gallo, 2017). The approach considers all
the aspects that affect the treatment process and the patient’s emotions, thoughts, opinion,
attitude and cultures. The holistic end of life care approach is based on equality, relative
openness, respect, mutuality as the patient under care is allowed to participate in decision
making.
The holistic end of life care has several benefits to palliative care providers, patients, and their
families. First, holistic approach increases the nurses understanding of the patient physical illness
and their specific needs. The holistic approach is comprehensive and involves educating patients
to increase their self awareness. The patients are able to understand their condition and its effects
that enable nurses to get a clear inquiry of the patient’s suffering (Gillan, Van der Riet, & Jeong,
2014). Secondly, the holistic care approach enables communication between the nurse and the
patient. Communication is important to creating therapeutic relationship in palliative care
(Balboni et al. 2016). The therapeutic relationship between the nurse and the patient enable the

nurse to provide education on self care and have a conversation that reveals patient’s feelings,
emotions, and desires while receiving health care. Thirdly, the palliative care provider is able to
understand the patient’s culture, values, and belief. The nurse understands the likely attitude,
perspective and values that the patient holds. This enables the nurse to appreciate and offer a
respectable palliative care to the patient. Holistic end of life care is also beneficial to the patient’s
families. The approach takes family into considerations when making patients’ palliative
decisions. Aged people like to be close to their families and help offer emotional support to the
patient (Mathews, & Johnston, 2017). The nurse is also able to provide stress, anxiety or
depression treatment to the family as a result of one member unhealthy condition. Another
benefit of holistic care approach is that patients have dignified death. The patients are involved in
decision making and conversation and their death is not a surprise (Glaser, & Strauss, 2017).
Patients are able to plan for their advance care. The patients is also able to identify substitute
decision maker in case the patient cannot communicate or unable to make sound decisions.
Holistic end of life care is therefore beneficial in providing comprehensive nursing care that
improves quality of life through psychological, social, physical, and spiritual approach to
assessing and treating patients.
Personal values and beliefs of a nurse have an impact when interacting with a palliative patient.
Personal values are stable and long–lasting beliefs that an individual hold as important and set
standard orders that a person lives and make choices (Connor, 2017). Beliefs develop into values
when someone commits to them and grow to being important in their life. It is important for a
nurse to understand personal values to make rational, responsible, consistent, and clear decisions.
Personal beliefs and values of a nurse in palliative affect nurses’ relationship with the patients
and their family. My personal belief and values have been shaped by my background. My
decisions while providing holistic palliative care will be highly influenced by personal values
and beliefs.
One of my personal values and belief that can affect interactions with palliative patient is
spirituality. Spiritual care is an important aspect to providing a holistic end of life care. Spiritual
care involves a nurse recognizing and responding to human spirit needs. I think spiritual care and
spiritual wellness of a patient are culturally bound and there is not standard method of offering
spiritual care. I also think that spirituality care should be a role of spiritual experts such as

pastoral team. Gardner, (2017) stated that spiritual care difficulties are caused by nurses differing
beliefs and perception of spirituality as contentious, taboo and sensitive subject hence assuming
it importance in holistic health care delivery. Centeno, Ballesteros, Carrasco, & Arantzamendi,
(2016) found that nurses’ spiritual awareness and understanding can improve end of life care
delivery. Human beings need spiritual care to when faced with trauma, sadness, or ill health that
leads them to struggle with self worth, meaning of life, expressing themselves, and require faith
support. Spiritual care help treat spiritual distress to restore patient’s belief system.
According to my personal beliefs and values, I find it uncomfortable to talk about death with a
patient. I understand the importance of communication in delivering quality palliative care but
find it hard when it has to be a topic on preparing the patient for last days. I belief death is
something that takes loved one’s life away leaving grief and agony to family and friends. I feel
like talking much about death leads to death occurring earlier than it would have happened if I
didn’t talk about it. Coelho et al., (2016) stated that communication is an important aspect of
providing a holistic palliative care. Conversations about death enable the patient to share about
their agenda and preferences. Communication helps nurses’ to identify and address all needs of
the patient which is central to holistic approach to palliative care. Teixeira, (2016) acknowledged
that communication in palliative care is a complex challenge to excellent care. Therefore lack of
proficient when communicating can overlook patient’s goals and wishes of the care undermining
the holistic palliative care.
In summary, personal beliefs and values influence a nurse’s ability to provide effective and
holistic end of life care. Palliative patients need a holistic end of life care to relieve pain, improve
quality of life, and have a dignified death. I found that I have to change my perspective and
attitude about spiritual care and communication and appreciate their role in providing holistic
palliative care. Spiritual care helps to treat spiritual distress while effective communication
enhances conversations with the patient that enable them to prepare and have a dignified death.
Therefore, nurses should understand and appreciate a holistic approach to providing effective
palliative care.

References
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