Spiritual Needs and Resources in Illness and Hospitalization
Barbara Simsen

This pilot study investigates spirituality as it pertains to the resources and needs of patients in illness/hospitalization. It is a concept acknowledged but as yet ill-defined and poorly developed in nursing literature. Codes governing nursing practice recognize and encourage, "regard to" and "respect for" the spiritual beliefs and values of patients. However, the literature available is insufficient to provide the nurse with an adequate knowledge base to enable professionally appropriate spiritual care to be given. This deficit must be remedied if spiritual resources are to be utilized>in ‘promoting health’, 'preventing illness' and ‘alleviating suffering'; and if spiritual needs associated with them are to be met.

In view of the lack of previous research, an exploratory pilot-study was designed aimed at describing the spiritual needs and resources of general medical and postoperative surgical patients.

Using the interview as an appropriate tool to gain access to data, a triangulation of approach was designed. The Study Part A used a semi-structured interview and sought data for statistical analysis, using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). A total of 45 Interviews were undertaken. Five in-depth interviews were conducted and qualitatively analyzed in the Study Part B.

Findings in the Study Part A revealed that religious practices were highly valued by many participants, especially so by women. Personal aspects of faith rated more highly than institutional forms. Fears associated with illness and hospitalization revealed that both explicit and implicit spiritual needs and resources were involved in dealing with them. No statistically significant relationships were found between the importance of beliefs and recorded ratings of fearfulness, not between the sub-samples (male and female, medical and surgical) for any of the variables tested.

Findings for the Study Part B suggested three conceptual tasks associated with the patients' search for meaning and three conceptual skills needed for undertaking them.

From this study, it is suggested that patients are willing to discuss their spiritual beliefs given an appropriate and safe opportunity to do so. Spiritual strengths and skills were an available and an important resource to many of them. Spiritual needs, as tasks associated with the search for meaning, and as other explicit and implicit deficits have been demonstrated. Both spiritual needs and resources require further investigation to refine and test the conceptualizations presented here.