The Patients’ Perspective on Spiritual Needs
Carol Kealy

The purpose of this study was to determine what patients perceive as their spiritual needs and whether nurses play a significant role in ministering to these needs. Information from nurses as to how they view their role in administering spiritual care was included.

Only registered nurses working on medical-surgical divisions of the selected hospitals and their patients were included in the study.

The study was completed in 1974. The medical-surgical patients included in this study were adults between twenty-one and sixty-five years of age who were mentally and physically capable of participation, fluent in the English language, and of Judeo-Christian background or religiously uncommitted.