Spiritual Beliefs as a Factor in the Performance of Nursing Staff Research Paper

Spiritual Beliefs as a Factor in the Performance of Nursing Staff - Research Paper Example These questions are significant to nursing practice; in order to meet the demands of the population and increase both patient chances of survival and patient satisfaction the role of spiritualism as a factor considered motivational has been studied to evaluate its efficiency. Following a literature review nursing practices have been identified which contribute to better patient outcomes and advanced education has been noted to increase the ability of the nurse to provide spiritual care. Those nurse’s with more experience and those working at a higher grade have a greater understanding of spirituality (Noble, & Jones, 2010). The value of communication with non-verbal cues is necessary and spiritual care must be guided by the patients themselves. Communication has been identified as a strong factor in the ability to deliver appropriate spiritual care in Milligan, 2004; McSherry, 2006; and Ross, 2006 by Noble and Jones. A lack of time is also considered a barrier to providing spi ritual care and the need for better education and training would be welcome by many. Spirituality among nurse’s is related positively to education levels and those having a Master’s degree. It is also related to 11-19 years clinical experience and having received spiritual education and training (Wu, & Lin, 2011). In Lind, Sendelbach, & Steen, (2011) nurses were described as feeling unprepared and unable to meet the spiritual needs of patients. Patient satisfaction surveys in a Minnesota cardiovascular progressive care unit determined that meeting the spiritual needs of patients in the unit was an area that needed improvement. The unit first analyzed the 2001 Joint Commission of 2001Press Ganey national inpatient data which indicated that there is a high value placed on emotional and spiritual care while patient’s are hospitalized. Second, there is a very strong correlation between meeting a patient’s emotional and spiritual needs to their overall satisfa ction and third, this is area in most hospitals that provides opportunity for a significant improvement. Spiritual distress has been named as an appropriate nursing diagnosis by The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association and it is a recommendation of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing that spiritual care is included in all education programs. Despite this fact education and training seems to be lacking to many nurses. Only a small number of nurses feel that they are able to meet the spiritual and emotional needs of patients. The unit began offering a two hour voluntary education program to the nurses with time paid and which 37 or 70% of the nurses attended over the period of a year. The instructor who taught the class was from a local faith affiliated University and the hospital Chaplain participated in each training class. This education program included concepts such as defining spirituality, what spiritual care is, what prevents spiritual care, when to call th e Chaplain and nursing interventions for spiritual care. Sessions were based on literature and staff surveys. The unit implemented a new survey, the HOPE survey, in order to provide spiritual assessment. The survey was taken from a teaching tool that was developed for Physicians. Likert type survey scores which measured patient satisfaction with spiritual and emotional care went up from 65% and 62% to 74% and 71% the two months following implementation of the training program. Pastoral care consultancies were increased from 16 to 27 per month and spiritual care plans were increased from 1 to 4 per month. The success of this program in the