Religious Experiences of Older People Receiving Palliative Care at Home

Abstract

<jats:p>Increasingly more older people are now being cared for in their own homes. Furthermore, it has become more common that people stay at home to receive end-of-life care. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), we analyzed the religious experiences of older people (aged 65+). We answered these questions: What kind of religious experiences do older people have when death is approaching? What does this tell us about their religious coping? As IPA is based on the in-depth analysis of small amounts of homogenous data, we analyzed five interviews with older people who were dying. We identified three main themes. First, religious experiences are relational, that is, deeply rooted in personal relationships. Second, religious experiences are real and can provide both struggles and comfort in the last stage of life. Third, the experience of encountering one’s mortality and planning for one’s death was calming; while many had unclear views on the afterlife, the idea of continuing bonds after death was comforting. More open discussion on religious matters, death, and dying would be welcomed as part of home-based end-of-life care.</jats:p>

Social relations and exclusion among people facing death

“…The data were collected as part of a multidisciplinary study on the meaningful relationships of older adults (MeRela) in palliative care following a decision made by a doctor, or who had been diagnosed with an illness that would lead to death and who were spending their final days in a private home. The participants were recruited via private hospices and a public at-home hospital network in southern Finland (see also Saarelainen et al 2020 ). Social and health care workers, typically nurses, inquired whether their clients would be interested in participating in the study.…”

“…In addition to the thematic interview, we used visual aids (Pictor: see, e.g. King et al 2013 ) as a tool (Saarelainen et al 2020 ). However, the drawings were not part of the data analysed in this article: we used the Pictor method only as part of the interviews to define how the participants located their social relationships.…”

The three main competencies of every healthcare professional within palliative care - a descriptive study

“…) Moreover, emotional sensitivity is needed when dealing with difficult thoughts and feelings together with palliative patients and their significant others (Hökkä et al, 2020;Melender et al, 2020;Östlund et al, 2019). In particular, cultural competence, religion literacy and empathy, the ability to listen and interact in a manner appropriate to the situation are emphasized when confronting different kinds of palliative patients and significant others (Givler et al, 2022;Saarelainen et al, 2020;Suikkala et al, 2021). Multi-professional collaboration was found only among the three main competences of nurses, according to the views of related caregivers and stakeholder representatives.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue “Religious and Spiritual Experiences”

“…Instead, we wanted to include articles on religious/spiritual (R/S) experiences that are more mundane and closer to everyday life, such as taking part in religious rituals, singing psalms or reading from the Qur'an. In this issue, Saarelainen et al (2020) describe the religious experiences of older people in Finland, as exemplified by the following quote: When we were little, our mom used to gather us around the table, and together we sang psalms and spiritual songs every Saturday . .…”

“…Suvi Saarelainen et al (2020) studied the religious experiences of older people (n = 5) who were receiving end-of-life care in their own homes. 'Ordinary' lived religion was the focus of the study.…”