Spiritual Health Care: Ethical Decision-Making in Nursing Report

This report delves into the significance of spiritual health care as a crucial aspect of overall patient well-being, emphasizing its role in providing purpose and meaning in life. It highlights the importance of ethical decision-making in addressing patient needs, particularly during times of illness or trauma, and introduces the HOPE approach as a valuable tool for spiritual assessment. The report discusses the positive impacts of spiritual care, such as improved interpersonal relationships and stress responses, while also acknowledging the weaknesses and barriers, including a lack of education and clear guidelines for nurses. It explores the role of religious and non-religious interventions, and emphasizes that medical professionals have the final say in extreme situations. The report also provides insights into cultural sensitivity in spiritual assessment, and the importance of understanding the personal meanings associated with spirituality and religion. It concludes with a call to action, encouraging healthcare professionals to incorporate spirituality into medical practice.

Running head: SPIRITUAL HEALTH CARE 1
SPIRITUAL HEALTH CARE
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Spiritual Health Care
Spiritual health care is a significant aspect of the patient's general healthcare; thus, it
provides purpose and meaning to an individual's life (Baldacchino, 2015). It is transpired by
the belief of a supreme being that seeks resolution, inspires hope, and transcends conscious
and physical constraints. On the other hand, spiritual care responds and recognizes the desires
of the human spirit during an encounter with sadness, ill health, trauma, which is inclusive of
the need for self –worth, sacrament, and faith support. Similarly, intervention and ethical
decision making are termed as a process that facilitates evaluation to select the suitable
alternatives that are in accordance with the ethical principles. Therefore, it is crucial to make
ethical decisions to eliminate and perceive unethical options and settle on the best alternative
that will be efficient to the patient. Ethical decision making is recommended when a
healthcare professional is addressing uncertainty or conflict regarding contending values such
as societal, organizational, personal, and professional.
On that note, HOPE is one of the suitable approaches for spiritual valuation; thus, it opens
the door for an in-depth dialog when the health profession has a desire for the patient's
spiritual health. HOPE is an ethical decision-making tool that provides peace of mind,
strength, comfort, and love to the patient. In addition, it facilitates conversations with people
from diverse beliefs and backgrounds.
Spiritual care has been noted to have a positive impact on a patient; hence it improves
interpersonal affiliations, self- integrity, spiritual well- being and stress response (Azarsa,
Davoodi, Markani, Gahramanian & Vargaeei, 2015). Spiritual care provides the patients with
the ability to be able to mitigate their discomfort and uncertainty of treatment process, restore
their internal peace, and face the fear of death. This care enables patients to strengthen their
social, physical, and psychological health in order to overcome their ailment. Hence, it will
enhance the state of health and quality of the patient.

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The weaknesses or barriers in spiritual care constitute of lack of education and training of
the nurses on spiritual matters. The majority of the nurse have an insufficient understanding
and knowledge of spiritual care; hence their incompetence may lead to the patient's spiritual
desires, not mate (Ross et al., 2016). Therefore, they need guidance to meet the spiritual
ambitions of the patients (Stevens & Raferty, 2018). In the majority of the medical facilities,
religious education is non- programmable, informal, and ambiguous. On the other hand,
some of the nurses view spiritual care as a waste of time; thus, they lack time to administer it
on the patients that may need it. In the nurse’s role, there are no clear guidelines in the
provision of spiritual care; thus, it makes the nurses reluctant in the delivery of the service.
Moreover, there is no approved definition of the term "spiritual need," "spiritual," and
"spiritual care."
In regards to intervention and ethical decision making, I believe that the medical
professional would have the final say during extreme situations. At that particular time as a
patient might have lost hope on healing, but the nurse may restore the hope in more not to
give up through spiritual support. The sector of spiritual care in nursing practice is often
categorized under non -religious and religious intervention. Thus divine intervention
facilitates the treatment of patients with religious beliefs to connect them with God to express
their faith and values.

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References
Azarsa, T., Davoodi, A., Markani, A. K., Gahramanian, A., & Vargaeei, A. (2015). Spiritual
wellbeing, attitude toward spiritual care, and its relationship with spiritual care
competence among critical care nurses. Journal of caring sciences, 4(4), 309.
Baldacchino, D. (2015). Spiritual care education of health care professionals. Religions, 6(2),
594-613.
Ross, L., Giske, T., Van Leeuwen, R., Baldacchino, D., McSherry, W., Narayanasamy, A., ...
& Schep-Akkerman, A. (2016). Factors contributing to student nurses'/midwives'
perceived competency in spiritual care. Nurse education today, 36, 445-451.
Stevens, A., & Raferty, J. (2018). Health Care Needs Assessment: The Epidemiologically
Based Needs Assessment Review. CRC Press.