BACKGROUND Although spirituality is usually considered a positive resource for coping with illness, spiritual distress may have a negative influence on health outcomes. Tools are needed to identify spiritual distress in clinical practice and subsequently address identified needs. This study describes the first steps in the development of a clinically acceptable instrument to assess spiritual di...

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...

Hitler had a noble purpose (to save the world) and a strong faith in the laws of Nature as he understood Nature. He was, then, a spiritual person, though his spirituality was pathological and destructive. Here, the example of Hitler, his faith, and his spiritual pathology is given to both understand spiritual pathology in general and, through contrast, to understand positive spiritual development.

Purpose. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of spiritual therapy intervention in improving the spiritual well-being and quality of life (QOL) of Iranian women with breast cancer. Methods. This randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) recruited 65 women with breast cancer, randomly assigned to a 6-week spirituality-based intervention (n = 34) or control group (n = 31). Before an...

The cultural and religious resources of every community influence the definition of spiritual care. This paper discusses a concept analysis of spiritual care in an Islamic context. The Quran, narrations (Shie’h) and commentarial books were searched, for information data. The data was used to provide a comprehensive definition of the concept of spiritual care from Islamic literature. We identifi...

The spiritual health of adolescents is a topic of emerging contemporary importance. Limited numbers of international studies provide evidence about developmental patterns of this aspect of health during the adolescent years. Using multidimensional indicators of spiritual health that have been adapted for use within younger adolescent populations, we therefore: (1) describe aspects of the percep...

BACKGROUND Spiritual distress is prevalent in advanced disease, but often neglected, resulting in unnecessary suffering. Evidence to inform spiritual care practices in palliative care is limited. AIM To explore spiritual care needs, experiences, preferences and research priorities in an international sample of patients with life-limiting disease and family caregivers. DESIGN Focus group stu...

AIM This study contributes to the development of a valid and reliable instrument, the spiritual care competence scale, as an instrument to assess nurses' competencies in providing spiritual care. BACKGROUND Measuring these competencies and their development is important and the construction of a reliable and valid instrument is recommended in the literature. DESIGN Survey. METHOD The part...

According to a paper published by the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement, "Each person has a spiritual dimension." That means each person has spiritual energy and spiritual needs. In facing death, a patient suffers spiritual pain and needs spiritual care. This paper describes what spirituality and spiritual pain mean. It identifies nine types of fears and anxieties about d...

In this paper, we outline a research project to investigate whether and how spiritual capital affects the economic behavior of individuals. We define spiritual capital as a set of intangible objects in the form of rules for interacting with people, nature, and spiritual beings (God, gods, buddhas, angels, evil spirits as believed to exist by individuals and in different religions) and believed ...