NURSING 3: Analysis of Spiritual Needs of Patients and Human Rights

This essay critically analyzes the challenges in realizing the aspirations of the common good and human rights in nursing, focusing on the unmet spiritual needs of patients. It highlights that a significant percentage of patients, especially those with cancer and in hospice care, feel their spiritual needs are not adequately addressed. Spiritual needs, defined as requirements that enhance spiritual growth and promote social and hopeful feelings, include communication, love, hope, peace, and gratitude. The essay discusses how terminal illnesses often lead patients to reflect on life's meaning, making spiritual practice crucial. It argues that neglecting these needs results in spiritual distress, a violation of human dignity, and affects both physical and psychological health. The essay suggests that healthcare professionals should provide avenues for patients to fulfill their spiritual needs, such as organizing leisure tours and encouraging family support, to ensure their overall well-being. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing the diverse spiritual needs of each patient to promote the common good and uphold human rights in healthcare.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Not attending to the spiritual needs of patients
According to a present survey conducted at Brisbane, more than 56 percent of cancer, as well as
hospice patients, feel that their spiritual needs are not getting attended in the healthcare home.
Spiritual needs can be defined as the requirements whose satisfaction has the potential to
enhance the spiritual growth of an individual along with making an individual social as well as
hopeful (Timmins & Caldeira, 2017). Spiritual needs generally include the need to communicate
with others, the need to feel loved and love and most importantly, the need to feel hope, peace as
well as gratitude.
Different things like a visit to religious places and social communication are performed
by individuals for meeting their spiritual needs (Ross & Austin, 2015). While some people
perform things like attaining a religious meeting or praying to their deities, other people prefer to
satisfy their spiritual needs by spending time with their friends and families or spending time in
nature or performing work or hobbies (VanderWeele., Balboni, & Koh, 2017).
However, Canfield et al., (2016) pointed out that since it becomes highly complicated for
healthcare service providers to perform activities for ensuring satisfaction of spiritual needs all
by themselves, it is highly crucial for the healthcare proffesionals to provide the patients with
scopes and measures so that their spiritual needs along with their physical needs can be satisfied
(Melhem et al., 2016).
Being diagnosed with a terminal illness often results in patients to reflect about death,
loss and grief, in ways that haven’t had to before. Several people with a terminal illness often
want to reflect on the meaning of their life (Wittenberg, Ragan & Ferrell, 2017). Therefore,

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spiritual practice often becomes highly crucial to patients, especially, who are suffering from a
terminal illness, as they move toward the end of their life.
It has been found that the lack of spiritual peace is resulting in spiritual distress amongst
the patients. Being a basic need for survival, spiritual needs can be considered as a part of
common good since the root purpose of the society includes interdependence. Lack of provision
of satisfying the spiritual needs of patients can be considered as a violation against human right
dignity. Recognizing a right to dignity can be considered as an acknowledgment of the intrinsic
worth of human beings. The spiritual distress can be defined as the patients or suffering that
takes place when individuals are unable to find sources of hope, love, comfort, meaning, strength
and eventually the connection to life. This distress possesses the potential to affect both the
physical as well as psychological health (Wu, Tseng & Liao, 2016). Considering the fact that
patient is not provided with spiritual requirements, it can be clearly understood that both the
common good and human rights have been breached. Terminal illness can often cause spiritual
distress in patients as well as their family and friends. The spiritual needs of terminally ill
patients even influence the satisfaction of the patient with care as well as the perception of the
quality of care. Like expectations associated with spiritual needs, the context of illness may vary
on the basis of cultural background, physicians, as well as nurses, need to explore the concern of
the patients on this realm with sensitivity. Providing activities to satisfy the spiritual needs of the
patients will definitely ensure the common good. For instance, in addition to the occasional visit
to religious places, healthcare homes can also organize leisure tours.
It can be clearly understood that it is highly important for the healthcare proffesionals to ensure
the provision of spiritual care to the patients in order to ensure their physical as well as
psychological wellbeing. It should be kept in mind that the needs of each and every patient are

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different. Some of the common strategies that can be implemented include arranging religious
service and encouraging the family and friends of the patients to spend more time with them.

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Reference List
Canfield, C., Taylor, D., Nagy, K., Strauser, C., VanKerkhove, K., Wills, S., ... & Sorrell, J.
(2016). Critical care nurses’ perceived need for guidance in addressing spirituality in
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Melhem, G. A. B., Zeilani, R. S., Zaqqout, O. A., Aljwad, A. I., Shawagfeh, M. Q., & Al-Rahim,
M. A. (2016). Nurses' perceptions of spirituality and spiritual caregiving: A comparison
study among all health care sectors in Jordan. Indian journal of palliative care, 22(1), 42.
Ross, L., & Austin, J. (2015). Spiritual needs and spiritual support preferences of people with
end‐stage heart failure and their carers: implications for nurse managers. Journal of
nursing management, 23(1), 87-95.
Timmins, F., & Caldeira, S. (2017). Understanding spirituality and spiritual care in
nursing. Nursing Standard, 31(22).
VanderWeele, T. J., Balboni, T. A., & Koh, H. K. (2017). Health and spirituality. Jama, 318(6),
519-520.
Wittenberg, E., Ragan, S. L., & Ferrell, B. (2017). Exploring nurse communication about
spirituality. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 34(6), 566-571.
Wu, L. F., Tseng, H. C., & Liao, Y. C. (2016). Nurse education and willingness to provide
spiritual care. Nurse education today, 38, 36-41.