The purpose of this essay is to review the Grofs’ model of spiritual emergencies. The authors ask: Has the model been useful for identifying and treating psycho-spiritual distress? Should it be amended? Spiritual emergency can be defined as a crisis involving religious, transpersonal, and/or spiritual issues that provides opportunities for growth. Spiritual emergence, meanwhile, lends itself to...

PURPOSE Although spirituality is typically intertwined with health in Native cultures, little research has examined the relationship between American Indians' spiritual needs and overall satisfaction with service provision during hospitalization. This study examined this relationship, in tandem with the effects of 8 potential mediators, to develop a model of spiritual care for older hospitalize...

Nurses and health care professionals should have an active role in meeting the spiritual needs of patients in collaboration with the family and the chaplain. Literature criticizes the impaired holistic care because the spiritual dimension is often overlooked by health care professionals. This could be due to feelings of incompetence due to lack of education on spiritual care; lack of inter-prof...

Nurses need to assess patients and provide care that encompasses the mind, body, and spirit. However, in many cases, nurses may not know what to say to the patient, may be uncomfortable with silence, may not want to pry into the patient’s personal life, or may feel hesitant to invade the patient’s private ‘‘space.’’ In 1 study, nurses reveal that 92% of the time, they feel inadequately prepared...

The need to include the spiritual dimension when assessing clients and planning their healthcare is evident from numerous studies conducted by various disciplines. Practitioners of holistic care agree that spiritual care must be included to address fully the needs of clients. The aim of this qualitative research was to explore and document the stories of clients regarding the role healthcare pr...

In recent years, medical and allied health publications have begun to address various topics on spirituality. Scholars have posited numerous definitions of spirituality and wrestled with the notion of spiritual pain and suffering. Researchers have examined the relationship between spirituality and health and explored, among other topics, patients' perceptions of their spiritual needs, particula...

Healthcare professionals express difficulties in delivering spiritual care, despite it being a core component of palliative care national policies. The patient perspective on professional training to address difficulties has not previously been sought. The aim of this study is to describe patient suggestions for development of training to deliver spiritual care. Qualitative semi-structured in-d...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to explore if and how spiritual needs are assessed and if spiritual care is provided to Dutch nursing home residents, including residents suffering from dementia, and if and how caregivers communicate and collaborate regarding the residents' spiritual needs. DESIGN Two researchers conducted an ethnographic participatory study in a Dutch nursing home betwee...

Spiritual pain/suffering is commonly experienced by persons with life-limiting illness and their families. Physical pain itself can be exacerbated by non-physical causes such as fear, anxiety, grief, unresolved guilt, depression and unmet spiritual meets. Likewise, the inability to manage physical pain well can be due to emotional and spiritual needs. This is why a holistic, interdisciplinary a...