A Spiritual Care Toolkit: An evidence-based solution to meet spiritual needs.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To determine differences between baseline spiritual perspectives of nurses, patients and their families and examine the effectiveness of a spiritual care (SC) toolkit as an intervention to facilitate meeting spiritual needs of hospitalised patients and families.

BACKGROUND: Provision of SC by nurses in the acute care environment is an issue of high priority for patients. Nurses report lack of time, comfort, training, cultural knowledge and mobilisation of resources as obstacles to SC delivery. Evidence points to positive patient outcomes and patient satisfaction, yet few studies include interventions to help nurses meet spiritual needs of patients and families.

DESIGN: Descriptive and quasi-experimental design.

METHODS: Patients, family members (n = 132) and nurses (n = 54) were administered SC surveys while hospitalised on two acute care units of a Midwest hospital system in the United States. Population represented patients suffering acute, chronic and terminal illness. Data collected over a 13-week period examined relationships between the groups spiritual perspectives and the effectiveness of a SC toolkit intervention.

RESULTS: Significant differences between nurse-patient and nurse-family groups were found, whereas no significant differences existed between patient-family groups. A pretest-posttest revealed the SC toolkit aided in overcoming obstacles to nurses' SC delivery. Patients and their family members found the SC toolkit helpful.

CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest an evidence-based SC toolkit has the propensity to help nurses meet spiritual needs of hospitalised patients and families. However, successful implementation and sustainability require organisational support, funding for resources and SC training for staff.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: A SC toolkit supplied with culturally sensitive faith resources supporting what patients and families value, believe and practice can be easily customised and implemented by any healthcare organisation in the world. Further investigation of SC toolkit effectiveness using multiple sites is recommended.