Spiritual Care for Hospitalized Patients with Chronic Illness

Abstract

The objectives of this descriptive research were to: 1) examine the nurses' perception of spiritual care for hospitalized patients with chronic illness; 2) compare the hospitalized patients' perception of spiritual care received among general, regional, and university hospitals; and 3) compare spiritual care provided with spiritual care received. The study samples were 505 register nurses and 373 patients from the hospitals in Southern Thailand selected by simple random technique. Content validity of these questionnaires was judged by six experts. The research instruments were the questionnaire of perceived spiritual care by nurses and perceived spiritual care received among patients which were developed by the researcher with reliability 0.95 and 0.86 respectively. Percentages, means, standard deviations, one way ANOVA, and independent t-tests were used to analyze data.

Results of the study showed that the overall nurses' perception of spiritual care provided were at high level. The perceived spiritual care received among three hospitals was significantly differences (p < .001). The perceived spiritual care by nurses and perceived spiritual care received among patients were significantly differences (p < .001).

It was suggested that in order to improve quality of spiritual care the hospital administrators need to increase nurses' skill of spiritual intervention, provide appropriate nurse ratio in each shift, provide opportunity for the nurse to sharing about the spiritual care experiences. In addition, nurses should provided care focusing on spirituality care.