Effectiveness of spiritual care training to enhance spiritual health and spiritual care competency among oncology nurses

Abstract

Background: Although spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, nurses' spiritual care knowledge and abilities are often unable to satisfy patients' spiritual care needs. Therefore, nurses are in urgent need of relevant training to enhance their abilities to provide patients with spiritual care. Design: A nonrandomized controlled trial. Objective: To establish a spiritual care training protocol and verify its effectiveness. Methods: This study recruited 92 nurses at a cancer treatment hospital in a single province via voluntary sign-up. The nurses were divided into two groups—the study group (45 people) and the control (wait-listed) group (47 people)—using a coin-toss method. The study group received one spiritual care group training session every six months based on their routine nursing education; this training chiefly consisted of lectures by experts, group interventions, clinical practice, and case sharing. The control group participated in monthly nursing education sessions organized by the hospital for 12 continuous months. Results: After 12 months of intervention, the nurses in the study group had significantly higher overall spiritual health and spiritual care competency scores as well as significantly higher scores on all individual dimensions compared with those in the control group (P<0.01). Conclusions: A spiritual care training protocol for nurses based on the concept of mutual growth with patients enhances nurses' spiritual well-being and spiritual care competencies.

A meaning-centered spiritual care training program for hospice palliative care teams in South Korea: development and preliminary evaluation

“…The McSCTP-HPCTs can help to enhance the spirituality of patients suffering from life-threatening ailments, as well as that of their family members. Since the aims of spiritual care include easing patients’ difficulties, helping them to find meaning in life, and improving their spiritual well-being [ 10 ], the McSCTP-HPCTs can help patients to attain these goals, as well as to understand their own sense of value.…”

“…Regarding the major content of interventions, we found it to be comprised of the essential aspects of human existence (the meaning of life, the will to ascribe meaning to things, freedom of will, choice and responsibility, and self-transcendence), in addition to how to find meaning (creativity, experience, and attitude). Besides MCI studies—which were designed to prevent burnout among, and provide support for, nurses who provide palliative care [ 13 , 14 ]—only one study on spiritual care training protocols has been conducted relating to the general educational content of spiritual care training for oncology nurses [ 10 ]. To the best of our knowledge, no McSCTP for HPCTs has been created thus far.…”

“…Spirituality researchers widely regard spirituality as a universal phenomenon, and people’s metaphysical beliefs are linked closely to their lives [ 9 ]. Understanding that humans are spiritual beings (whether they are religious or not) may be one of the strongest predictors for HPCT members in providing spiritual care for patients with life-threatening illnesses [ 10 ]. There is an urgent need for training to enhance the ability of HPCT members to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs.…”

“…Because spiritual care has been confused with religious care, responsibility for it is placed in the hands of clergy [ 11 , 12 ]. A group intervention study was conducted in the United States [ 13 , 14 ] to improve HPCT nurses’ job satisfaction and QoL; likewise, a study that developed a spiritual care training protocol for oncology nurses as a comprehensive component of spiritual care was conducted in China [ 10 ]. In addition, a spiritual care training program, Clinical Pastoral Education for Healthcare Providers (CPE-HP), was created by Zollfrank et al [ 2 ] to address healthcare providers’ ability to provide spiritual or religious care as part of healthcare.…”

Association between psychological capital and spiritual care competencies of clinical nurses: A multicentre cross‐sectional study

“…However, their understanding of the relationship between Chinese philosophies and religions and spiritual care is weak as they have not received any kind of spiritual care education. Several studies demonstrate that spiritual intelligence training could effectively improve nurses and student nurses’ spiritual care competencies (Hu, Jiao et al, 2019). However, few Chinese hospitals implement efficient spiritual training measures for nurses.…”