People living with serious illness: stories of spirituality

Abstract

Aims and objectives. To examine stories of spirituality in people living with serious illness. Background. Although knowledge about the experience of people with various chronic illnesses is growing, there is little known about peoples’ beliefs and perspectives relating to spirituality where there is a diagnosis of a serious chronic and life‐limiting illness. Design of the study. A social constructionist approach to narrative inquiry was used. Methods. In‐depth narrative interviews were conducted on one occasion with 32 participants. This included 10 people with cancer, 14 people with end stage renal disease (ESRD) and eight people with HIV/AIDS. They ranged in age from 37–83 and included 18 men and 14 women. Results. The themes were reflecting on spiritual religious and personal beliefs, crafting beliefs for their own lives, finding meaning and transcending beyond words. Participants melded various belief systems to fit their own lives. They also looked to find meaning in their illness experience and described what gave life meaning. For some aspects of these belief systems, participants could not or would not express themselves verbally, and it seemed that aspects of their experience were beyond language. Conclusions. The stories revealed considerable depth relating to perspectives on life, illness and existential questions, but many participants were not comfortable with the term ‘spirituality’. Relevance to clinical practice. Nurses must remain open to learning about belief systems of each individual in their care, regardless of that individual’s declared religious affiliation or declaration of no religious affiliation, given that personal beliefs and practices do not always fit into specific categories.

Quality of life and well‐being of people receiving haemodialysis treatment in Scotland: A cross‐sectional survey

“…For example, Walton (2002) illustrated this in a grounded theory study with 11 patients receiving HD treatment in the USA. Similarly, in Canada, patients identified that spirituality is important in their lives and helps them to find meaning in illness, which empowers them to come to terms with their disease (Molzahn et al, 2012). Further evidence from three studies also suggests that the way in which spirituality affects patients" lives is by facilitating coping, which gives patients the ability to adapt and manage their daily lives.…”

“…Only two studies offered a theoretical justification of their study (Tanyi and Werner, 2003;Molzahn et al, 2012).…”

“…Although the main aim of the other three studies was not to explore spirituality, they highlighted that spirituality was important in the lives of their study participants as emerged from their findings. For instance, one study examined the lived experience of patients with ESRD (Tanyi and Werenr, 2008a), one study explored the different coping strategies within this population (Yodchai et al, 2011) and the other study explored stories of spirituality in patients with chronic illnesses where a number of patients diagnosed with ESRD was recruited to participate (Molzahn et al, 2012). Only four quantitative studies examined the relationship between spirituality and QOL or HRQOL of patients receiving HD treatment.…”

“…Of the 22 studies, six used a qualitative approach including grounded theory (Walton, 2002 andYodchai et al, 2011), descriptive phenomenology (Tanyi and Werner, 2008a;Tanyi and Werner, 2008b) and one study used narrative inquiry (Molzahn et al, 2012). Ten studies employed a cross-sectional survey design.…”

Strategies and effectiveness of narrative medicine in renal patients: a literature review. Part 1

“…La narrazione da parte del malato della propria storia e l'ascolto di chi si prende cura di lui, gli permettono di esprimere il proprio disagio e le proprie emozioni, di instaurare una relazione terapeutica efficace, che lo aiuti a prendere le decisioni in modo più consapevole e a esserne più partecipe. Gli studi scientifici presenti in letteratura, svolti nell'ambito della medicina narrativa, sono per lo più di tipo qualitativo e si basano sulla prospettiva costruttivista che parte dal presupposto che persone, gruppi e culture creano e sostengono la loro comprensione e rappresentazione della realtà attraverso la costruzione condivisa di storie (2). Il Nursing Narrativo nasce con gli studi di Paterson e Zderad…”