Prayer and Religion—Irish Nurses Caring for an Intellectually Disabled Child Who Has Died

Abstract

This research paper was presented at the Second International Spirituality in Healthcare Conference 2016-Nurturing the Spirit held at Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin. 23rd June 2016. Historically, nursing has had a sound "spiritual" grounding. However, some contemporary health literature is questioning spirituality's relevance, and practitioners often shy away from it. This article aims to highlight the findings of a study which, in exploring the nurse's personal grief relating to caring for a child with an intellectual disability who has died, identified the practice and value of spirituality in nursing practice. A qualitative descriptive research approach was employed. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with eight female nurses who had cared for a child with an intellectual disability who has died. Data was analyzed using Newell and Burnard's pragmatic approach to qualitative data. Ethical Approval was granted by University of Dublin, Trinity College and the relevant healthcare provider. Eight broad themes emerged from the study. "Prayer and Religion" was a sub-theme of "Focusing on the positive", which is the main focus of this article, and discussed in depth for the first time. Spirituality and religion plays a key role in the daily lives of many nurses, who further embrace this aspect of their lives when managing dying, death and bereavement. It became evident that spirituality was not merely a reactive strategy, but one underpinning a participant's core nursing values. Nurse Managers and colleagues should continue to acknowledge, respect and support staff's spirituality.

Special Issue “International Conference of Spirituality in Healthcare. Nurturing the Spirit”—Trinity College Dublin 2016

“…Specifically they explored needs of nurses caring for intellectually disabled children who have died. The paper highlights that these nurses experience grief when managing dying, death and bereavement (Keenan and MacDermott 2016). Their findings support spirituality as an effective strategy used to deal with this grief.…”

“…(Keenan and MacDermott 2016) paper takes a different approach. This qualitative descriptive study adds to the sporadic evidence on spiritual needs of nurses.…”

“…However, what is novel is that spirituality is now receiving unprecedented attention within international healthcare research, evidenced for example by Egan et al (Egan et al 2011) first national study of nurses views on spirituality within healthcare in New Zealand. Furthermore, while spirituality is traditionally associated with end of life care (Romeiro et al 2017;Velosa et al 2017) these papers reflect the widening and diverse application of spirituality in areas such as intellectual disability, day surgery, infertility and dietetics (Romeiro et al 2017;Keenan and MacDermott 2016;Pike 2017;Patel et al 2017). …”

Spiritual Vulnerability, Spiritual Risk and Spiritual Safety—In Answer to a Question: ‘Why Is Spirituality Important within Health and Social Care?’ at the ‘Second International Spirituality in Healthcare Conference 2016—Nurturing the Spirit.’ Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

“…These concepts are not new to caring professions [7,8]. For example, one would be surprised if the nurse Florence Nightingale, or her mentor Cardinal Manning, or the nuns who provided her formative nurse training in a Paris Hospital [9] have not already spoken of such, or similar concepts.…”

“…Yet the meaning of spirituality and religion are contested concepts within the health professional. Secondly, nurses question spirituality's relevance to care and many shy away from responding to such needs [7,10] and therefore omit essential interventions to holistic care, thus raising important ethical issues.…”