Integrating Faith and Spirituality in Nursing Care: A Reflection

This essay explores the integration of faith and spirituality in patient care from a nursing perspective. The author defines faith and spirituality, highlighting their interconnectedness and providing examples of how they manifest in professional practice. The paper discusses spiritual diagnosis, emphasizing its importance in addressing patients' emotional and psychological needs, especially those facing chronic illnesses. It outlines strategies for faith engagement, including the role of a nurse leader in fostering spiritual care among staff and patients, and the importance of ethical and moral parameters. The author reflects on personal experiences, new insights gained regarding cultural diversity, and the limitations and strengths of providing faith-based care. The essay concludes by examining the author's current beliefs and values related to patient care, emphasizing the importance of spiritual care in improving patients' quality of life. The paper incorporates relevant literature and references to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive overview of spiritual integration in nursing practice. The paper also explores the challenges and opportunities in addressing the spiritual needs of patients from diverse cultural backgrounds, highlighting the importance of culturally competent care and the role of nurses in bridging communication barriers and promoting patient satisfaction. The author also reflects on the importance of understanding the dying process and overcoming fears associated with it, along with the need to address the spiritual needs of families and provide them with support during difficult times. The essay emphasizes the significance of spiritual nursing care in promoting holistic patient well-being and contributing to their healing process. The paper also discusses the importance of training programs and technical skills in providing spiritual nursing care, as well as government support for family-based care programs. The author concludes by emphasizing the significance of spiritual nursing care to each patient and the role it plays towards the healing of patients.

Running head: SPIRITUAL INTERGRATION IN PATIENTS CARE 1
Spiritual Integration in Patient Care
Name
Institution

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Spiritual Integration in Patient Care
Personal Experience
Based on my own experience, I would define faith as a belief, which entails decision-
making. It is what anyone claims to believe. It is putting stock in things we cannot see through
the five detects, however, which can be felt via the intuition: instinct. Our instinct discloses to us
that there is an option that is greater than we are, the indications of this are all over on the off
chance that we open our spirits to them. Faith is our conviction this is valid. It is an expansive
idea that gives room to different points of view. It involves a feeling of association with an
option that is greater than we are which incorporates the seeking of the importance of life
(Puchalski, 2004). This paper discusses how I have integrated my faith or spirituality in caring
for the needs of my patients.
Faith and Spirituality
There is a difference between faith and spiritualty when it comes to definitions, but when
considering the two concepts, they intertwine. Faith serves as the source of our spirituality and
from my definitions of these two terms, one leads to the other. Spirituality results when one’s
faith that has been activated (Duphily, 2014). There are various examples of faith and spirituality
(Ackley, Ladwig & Makic, 2017). Examples of spirituality include prayer and miracles while
those of faith include those cited in the biblical teachings of the Bible and those of our everyday
life. Examples include having faith that tomorrow the sun will rise and having faith that when
flying in a plane, one cannot fall out of the sky.
In my professional practice, there are different ways in which faith and spirituality will
guide me in providing care to my patients. Spiritual nursing care is an essential aspect of the

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provision of health care to patients. I will consider the knowledge of spiritual nursing care to
meet my patient’s needs. The knowledge that I have gained has allowed me to understand the
interconnectedness of emotional, physiological, physical and dimensions of social care that will
allow me to treat patients accordingly. It will help me maintain hope in patients and help them
find the meaning and purpose in their pain.
Spiritual Diagnosis
The spiritual diagnosis that I will include in my plan of care is spiritual distress especially
those related to illnesses that are chronic, for instance, cancer. It is because it facilitates my
experiences with patients suffering, needs and problems. As argued by Kearney (2016), this
spiritual diagnosis will also allow me to listen to patients verbally as they convey their anxieties
and feelings, for example, distress, melancholy, loneliness, outrage or agitation which may
hinder wellness achievement. It will also allow me to touch patients either to touch patients
spiritually, emotionally or physically to assure them that they are connected with others in the
family of God. These practices, nonetheless, grounded in a medical caretaker's profound
rationality of life, for example, that explained in the illustration of the Good Samaritan (Luke
10:25-37), go up against the component of service; they comprise the nurses' philosophy of
compassionate.
Faith Engagement
As a nurse leader, I will engage faith by using my role as a leader to help spiritually care
for patients. I trust that patients, at their centre, are profound. In some cases, the best prescription
does not originate from a pill but rather the Creator (Jahandar, Zagheri, Rassouli, Atashzadeh &
Kavousi, 2017). I will be able to influence others by developing future visions. I will inspire,

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empower and motivate my entire nursing staff towards spiritual care to the patient s. I will
develop an upstanding character with a well-defined code of moral and ethical parameters that
will affect the interactions and behaviour of others. I will also commit to my profession as I
strive to put the needs of others including patients and the objectives of the healthcare
organisation. I will spiritually care for the patients and any other clients in all settings within and
outside my profession leading as an example. I will also entice my colleagues to uphold spiritual
nursing in their day-to-day interaction with patients. In summary, I will be an ambassador of
faith a nurse leader knowing the significance of spiritual nursing care to each patient and the role
it plays towards the healing of patients.
New Insights
I have learned various new insights and regarding cultural diversity and nursing that have
shaped my professional experience. I have discovered that cultural diversity in multicultural
societies leads to the coexistence of diverse ethnic groups (Fishbach & Dunning, 2008). As
health care profession, there is a need to feel committed to delivering culturally competent care.
This is an essential and critical factor in providing health care to families of all ethnic, racial,
cultural origins. I have also learnt that pitting such actions in nursing practice is vital and
demanding due to the availability of barriers that are linked with contextual and personal factors
that enhance or hinder the care. Some of the concerns related to cultural diversity include barriers
of communication, accessibility of quality care and satisfaction in the delivery of care to patients
of various ethnic origins (Holloway, 2004).
I have also learnt insights of the external barriers that interfere with the provision of
health care to patients such as language differences, confidentiality and cultural particularities
especially in communication concerning patriarchal attitudes and gender distinctions in the

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family. These barriers can interfere with the provision of quality care hence requires appropriate
measures to be taken. These new insights revealed to me the tension experienced by nurses in the
care of families from diverse cultures and the consequences for the perceived meaning,
especially in care relationship and experience.
Limitations and Strengths
There are various areas of restriction and strengths in providing faith-based care. The first
limitation is inadequate knowledge of effective care especially for the chronically ill patients
(Carr, 2010). The second limitation is the lack of coordination and continuity of care and
improper care of the poor people. In the discussion, there is a challenge in helping the family that
has no hope for a cure. As a health care professional, one is needed to gain knowledge about the
process of dying and gain an understanding of overcoming one’s fears (Eliopoulos, 2013). Their
scientific backgrounds often are inadequate to set them up to consider their life methods of
insight and individual and moral qualities, and even the learning that religious societies may
enable them to all the more likely comprehend human responses notwithstanding impending
misfortune can allow them to more readily address the issues exhibited by families agitated with
agony and enduring.
Another impediment is obliging the otherworldly needs of the family, or if nothing else
giving space to their participation (Murcia and Lopez, 2016). Understanding their profound
torment, one may consider that spirituality might be characterized as something that conveys
importance and reason to individuals' lives. Amazing quality in the scan for significance and
spirituality is one of the numerous feelings experienced by these families. Other limitations

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include, expected stance and guidance from experience. The strengths included combined
preventive-curative services, continuity of care by various sectors within the centre of health
care, provision of training programs and technical skills related to spiritual nursing care as well
as government support for programs that provide training and provision of family-based care.
Current Beliefs and Values Integration
The present beliefs and convictions of my traditional faith identified with the idea of
giving care to patients as a Christian entail a lot. My faith tradition considers spiritual care as
being part of improving patients’ quality of life including their families. For Muslims, for
instance, spirituality is perceived as being inseparable from their religion (Brémault et al., 2015).
Their view of spiritual inseparability and ritual can be attributed to the provision of health care to
patients.

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