scholarly journals Hear to Care: The role of caregivers in the spiritual care of residents in New Zealand Rest Homes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Judith Hardie
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Caregiver Training ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
Qualitative Research Methodology ◽  
Rest Home ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Caregiver Role ◽  
Provision Of Care

<p>This thesis argues that caregivers are exposed to the spiritual needs of rest home residents much more than might have previously been recognised, and that they are a more important part of the matrix of spiritual care than has been understood or acknowledged. By employing a qualitative research methodology, staff, residents and management at two rest homes in the greater Wellington region were interviewed to address the question: to what extent and in what ways is spiritual care a part of the caregiver role in New Zealand rest homes? The research explores current understandings and perceptions of the caregivers' role in attending to the spiritual needs of the residents by addressing a key set of related questions that arise from consideration of the rest home milieu. The research indicates that the move into a rest home is a turning point in the life of the residents. The changes involved in this transition may lead to a spiritual search for meaning, and to questioning that arises from a sense of being in transition from life to death. In the course of daily work, caregivers, as members of the team that provides holistic care, therefore relate to residents who are experiencing various spiritual challenges associated with rest home life and the vulnerability of ageing. Caregivers' confidence to respond to residents' spiritual needs was explored. The thesis suggests that there would be value in extending caregiver training to strengthen their capacity to recognise and respond to spiritual issues when they occur in the course of their work. Such training is seen as important if provision of care in rest homes for the aged population in New Zealand is to be truly holistic.</p>

scholarly journals Hear to Care: The role of caregivers in the spiritual care of residents in New Zealand Rest Homes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Judith Hardie
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Caregiver Training ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
Qualitative Research Methodology ◽  
Rest Home ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Caregiver Role ◽  
Provision Of Care

<p>This thesis argues that caregivers are exposed to the spiritual needs of rest home residents much more than might have previously been recognised, and that they are a more important part of the matrix of spiritual care than has been understood or acknowledged. By employing a qualitative research methodology, staff, residents and management at two rest homes in the greater Wellington region were interviewed to address the question: to what extent and in what ways is spiritual care a part of the caregiver role in New Zealand rest homes? The research explores current understandings and perceptions of the caregivers' role in attending to the spiritual needs of the residents by addressing a key set of related questions that arise from consideration of the rest home milieu. The research indicates that the move into a rest home is a turning point in the life of the residents. The changes involved in this transition may lead to a spiritual search for meaning, and to questioning that arises from a sense of being in transition from life to death. In the course of daily work, caregivers, as members of the team that provides holistic care, therefore relate to residents who are experiencing various spiritual challenges associated with rest home life and the vulnerability of ageing. Caregivers' confidence to respond to residents' spiritual needs was explored. The thesis suggests that there would be value in extending caregiver training to strengthen their capacity to recognise and respond to spiritual issues when they occur in the course of their work. Such training is seen as important if provision of care in rest homes for the aged population in New Zealand is to be truly holistic.</p>

Spiritual beliefs, practices, and needs at the end of life: Results from a New Zealand national hospice study

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Egan ◽  
Rod MacLeod ◽  
Chrystal Jaye ◽  
Rob McGee ◽  
Joanne Baxter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Organizational Support ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Peace Of Mind

AbstractObjective:International studies have shown that patients want their spiritual needs attended to at the end of life. The present authors developed a project to investigate people's understanding of spirituality and spiritual care practices in New Zealand (NZ) hospices.Method:A mixed-methods approach included 52 semistructured interviews and a survey of 642 patients, family members, and staff from 25 (78%) of NZ's hospices. We employed a generic qualitative design and analysis to capture the experiences and understandings of participants' spirituality and spiritual care, while a cross-sectional survey yielded population level information.Results:Our findings suggest that spirituality is broadly understood and considered important for all three of the populations studied. The patient and family populations had high spiritual needs that included a search for (1) meaning, (2) peace of mind, and (3) a degree of certainty in an uncertain world. The healthcare professionals in the hospices surveyed seldom explicitly met the needs of patients and families. Staff had spiritual needs, but organizational support was sometimes lacking in attending to these needs.Significance of results:As a result of our study, which was the first nationwide study in NZ to examine spirituality in hospice care, Hospice New Zealand has developed a spirituality professional development program. Given that spirituality was found to be important to the majority of our participants, it is hoped that the adoption of such an approach will impact on spiritual care for patients and families in NZ hospices.

scholarly journals Staff Perceptions of How Music Therapy Can Support Palliative Care Patients in a New Zealand / Aotearoa Hospice, with a Particular Focus on Spiritual Care

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keryn Squires
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Music Therapy ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Dying Patients ◽  
Over Time

<p>The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of staff from a hospice, in New Zealand / Aotearoa, regarding the use of music therapy in the care of dying patients. The study has a particular focus on spiritual aspects of palliative care in music therapy, as spirituality is an inherent aspect of the work done by caregivers in palliative care. Hospice staff were asked to reflect on what they knew and understood of music therapy before, and after, a music therapy student arrived at the hospice, and their narratives were explored to uncover the links between patients, music and spirituality. The aim of this was to identify what might be needed to increase knowledge, to improve referral processes, and to increase opportunities for collaborative team work. A cross-section of staff, i.e. two nurses, one doctor, an occupational therapist, and a counsellor, who were part of the palliative care team, were recruited to participate in two semi-structured interviews to discuss their perceptions of the potential for music therapy to support the spiritual needs of hospice patients. A qualitative approach was employed and narrative analysis was used to interpret the interviews. Narrative research emphasises the language of human understanding and in this research it involved gathering participants' 'stories' of their evolving perceptions over time. Findings suggest the language used to describe spiritual care in music therapy was different for each participant although common meanings were drawn from the participants' stories. Commonalities included: music therapy in the hospice was valued by the participants; some participants would like more knowledge to make an informed referral. In addition, staff understanding appeared to have increased over time partly due to educational seminars, sharing at team meetings, actual exposure to music therapy, informal conversations with staff, and participants' growing knowledge of music therapy through their own personal process of learning.</p>

scholarly journals “Let my Spirit Always Sing”: a Descriptive Study of How Four Elderly Rest Home Residents View Spirituality and Spiritual Care at the End of Life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Judith Anne Brown
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Residential Care ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Rest Home

<p>Over the last twenty years spiritual care has become recognised increasingly as an important component of holistic care, care that nurtures the spirit as well as addressing the person’s physical and psychosociocultural needs. This descriptive, qualitative study, believed to be the first of its kind conducted in a New Zealand setting, focuses on spirituality issues of a spiritually vulnerable group of people, older people in residential care. From this group of people I recruited four Rest Home residents who were prepared to talk to me about their spirituality, spiritual needs and how their spirits were nurtured, the role of care staff in providing spiritual care, and their satisfaction with the spiritual care they were being offered. They were also asked to predict their spiritual needs as they were dying, their wishes for spiritual care in the perideath period, whether they had communicated these wishes to anyone, their views on advance planning to ensure these wishes would be met, and their comfort with the research process. The research data was collected from semi-structured, audiotaped interviews that were later transcribed. The spirituality of all participants had a strongly Christian focus that was revealed in the ten themes to emerge from a modified application of Colaizzi’s analysis technique. The first themes to emerge were God as the focus of spirituality, God in control, the importance of relationship, and the purpose in life: serving God. Changes in spirituality with age, spirituality and residential care, and spiritual care: whose responsibility? were also identified as themes, as were end of life spirituality, planning for spiritual care, and the participants’ satisfaction with the research process. All were able to articulate their spirituality, were generally satisfied with the spiritual care they were receiving, and had views on the spiritual care they wished to receive in the perideath period. Moreover, the participants trusted their families and the care staff to ensure that these wishes would be honoured.Recommendations are made for improving the spiritual dimension of care, and for further research. Similar research, for example, should be carried out in different residential care settings, especially in the “for profit” sector. Research should also be undertaken to gauge the awareness care staff have of residents’ wishes for spiritual care in the perideath period.</p>

scholarly journals Staff Perceptions of How Music Therapy Can Support Palliative Care Patients in a New Zealand / Aotearoa Hospice, with a Particular Focus on Spiritual Care

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keryn Squires
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Music Therapy ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Dying Patients ◽  
Over Time

<p>The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of staff from a hospice, in New Zealand / Aotearoa, regarding the use of music therapy in the care of dying patients. The study has a particular focus on spiritual aspects of palliative care in music therapy, as spirituality is an inherent aspect of the work done by caregivers in palliative care. Hospice staff were asked to reflect on what they knew and understood of music therapy before, and after, a music therapy student arrived at the hospice, and their narratives were explored to uncover the links between patients, music and spirituality. The aim of this was to identify what might be needed to increase knowledge, to improve referral processes, and to increase opportunities for collaborative team work. A cross-section of staff, i.e. two nurses, one doctor, an occupational therapist, and a counsellor, who were part of the palliative care team, were recruited to participate in two semi-structured interviews to discuss their perceptions of the potential for music therapy to support the spiritual needs of hospice patients. A qualitative approach was employed and narrative analysis was used to interpret the interviews. Narrative research emphasises the language of human understanding and in this research it involved gathering participants' 'stories' of their evolving perceptions over time. Findings suggest the language used to describe spiritual care in music therapy was different for each participant although common meanings were drawn from the participants' stories. Commonalities included: music therapy in the hospice was valued by the participants; some participants would like more knowledge to make an informed referral. In addition, staff understanding appeared to have increased over time partly due to educational seminars, sharing at team meetings, actual exposure to music therapy, informal conversations with staff, and participants' growing knowledge of music therapy through their own personal process of learning.</p>

scholarly journals “Let my Spirit Always Sing”: a Descriptive Study of How Four Elderly Rest Home Residents View Spirituality and Spiritual Care at the End of Life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Judith Anne Brown
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Residential Care ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Rest Home

<p>Over the last twenty years spiritual care has become recognised increasingly as an important component of holistic care, care that nurtures the spirit as well as addressing the person’s physical and psychosociocultural needs. This descriptive, qualitative study, believed to be the first of its kind conducted in a New Zealand setting, focuses on spirituality issues of a spiritually vulnerable group of people, older people in residential care. From this group of people I recruited four Rest Home residents who were prepared to talk to me about their spirituality, spiritual needs and how their spirits were nurtured, the role of care staff in providing spiritual care, and their satisfaction with the spiritual care they were being offered. They were also asked to predict their spiritual needs as they were dying, their wishes for spiritual care in the perideath period, whether they had communicated these wishes to anyone, their views on advance planning to ensure these wishes would be met, and their comfort with the research process. The research data was collected from semi-structured, audiotaped interviews that were later transcribed. The spirituality of all participants had a strongly Christian focus that was revealed in the ten themes to emerge from a modified application of Colaizzi’s analysis technique. The first themes to emerge were God as the focus of spirituality, God in control, the importance of relationship, and the purpose in life: serving God. Changes in spirituality with age, spirituality and residential care, and spiritual care: whose responsibility? were also identified as themes, as were end of life spirituality, planning for spiritual care, and the participants’ satisfaction with the research process. All were able to articulate their spirituality, were generally satisfied with the spiritual care they were receiving, and had views on the spiritual care they wished to receive in the perideath period. Moreover, the participants trusted their families and the care staff to ensure that these wishes would be honoured.Recommendations are made for improving the spiritual dimension of care, and for further research. Similar research, for example, should be carried out in different residential care settings, especially in the “for profit” sector. Research should also be undertaken to gauge the awareness care staff have of residents’ wishes for spiritual care in the perideath period.</p>

scholarly journals The Process of Spiritual Care

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricko Damberg Nissen ◽  
Dorte Toudal Viftrup ◽  
Niels Christian Hvidt
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
International Development ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Treatment Plan ◽  
Healthcare Research ◽  
World Health ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
The Individual

The aim of this article is to illustrate and outline an understanding of spiritual care as a process involving a number of organically linked phases: (1) the identification of spiritual needs and resources, (2) understanding the patient’s specific needs, (3) developing the individual spiritual care treatment plan, hereunder involving the relevant healthcare/spiritual care professionals, (4) the provision of spiritual care, and (5) evaluating the spiritual care provided. The focus on spiritual care in healthcare research has increased throughout the past decades, showing that existential, spiritual, and/or religious considerations and needs increase with life-threatening illness, that these needs intensify with the severity of disease and with the prospect of death. Furthermore, research has shown that spiritual care increases quality of life, but also that failing to provide spiritual care leads to increased chance of depression and lowered health conditions. The World Health Organization accordingly emphasizes that providing spiritual care is vital for enhancing quality-of-life. Looking at spiritual care as a process suggests that working within a defined conceptual framework for providing spiritual care, is a recommendable default position for any institution where spiritual care is part of the daily work and routines. This so, especially because looking at spiritual care as a process highlights that moving from identifying spiritual needs in a patient to the actual provision of spiritual care, involves deliberate and considered actions and interventions that take into account the specific cultural and ontological grounding of the patient as well as the appropriate persons to provide the spiritual care. By presenting spiritual care as a process, we hope to inspire and to contribute to the international development of spiritual care, by enabling sharing experiences and best-practices internationally and cross-culturally. This so to better approach the practical and daily dimensions of spiritual care, to better address and consider the individual patient’s specific spiritual needs, be they secular, spiritual and/or religious. In the final instance, spiritual care has only one ambition; to help the individual human being through crisis.

scholarly journals Translation and Validation of the Spanish Version of the Spiritual Care Competence Questionnaire (SCCQ)

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 3621-3639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Pastrana ◽  
Eckhard Frick ◽  
Alicia Krikorian ◽  
Leticia Ascencio ◽  
Florencia Galeazzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Spanish Version ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Good Internal Consistency ◽  
Spiritual Self ◽  
Team Spirit ◽  
Translation And Validation

AbstractWe aimed to validate the Spanish version of the Spiritual Care Competence Questionnaire (SCCQ) in a sample of 791 health care professionals from Spanish speaking countries coming principally from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Spain. Exploratory factor analysis pointed to six factors with good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.71 to 0.90), which are in line with the factors of the primary version of the SCCQ. Conversation competences and Perception of spiritual needs competences scored highest, and Documentation competences and Team spirit the lowest, Empowerment competences and Spiritual self-awareness competences in-between. The Spanish Version of the SCCQ can be used for assessment of spiritual care competencies, planning of educational activities and for comparisons as well as monitoring/follow-up after implementation of improvement strategies.

scholarly journals The Effect of Blue-Green Infrastructure on Habitat Connectivity and Biodiversity: A Case Study in the Ōtākaro/Avon River Catchment in Christchurch, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6732
Author(s):  
Thuy Thi Nguyen ◽  
Colin Meurk ◽  
Rubianca Benavidez ◽  
Bethanna Jackson ◽  
Markus Pahlow
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Habitat Connectivity ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Environmental Evaluation ◽  
Representative Species ◽  
The Matrix

The natural capital components in cities (“blue-green infrastructure” BGI) are designed to address long-term sustainability and create multi-benefits for society, culture, business, and ecology. We investigated the added value of BGI through the research question “Can the implementation of blue-green infrastructure lead to an improvement of habitat connectivity and biodiversity in urban environments?” To answer this, the Biological and Environmental Evaluation Tools for Landscape Ecology (BEETLE) within the Land Utilisation and Capability Indicator (LUCI) framework was adopted and applied in Christchurch, New Zealand, for the first time. Three ecologically representative species were selected. The parameterisation was based on ecological theory and expert judgment. By implementation of BGI, the percentages of habitats of interest for kereru and paradise shelduck increased by 3.3% and 2.5%, respectively. This leads to improved habitat connectivity. We suggest several opportunities for regenerating more native patches around the catchment to achieve the recommended minimum 10% target of indigenous cover. However, BGI alone cannot return a full suite of threatened wildlife to the city without predator-fenced breeding sanctuaries and wider pest control across the matrix. The socio-eco-spatial connectivity analysed in this study was formalised in terms of four interacting dimensions.

Verwendung eines orientierenden Spiritual Needs Screeners bei onkologischen Patienten

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (03) ◽  
pp. 112-115
Author(s):  
Arndt Büssing
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Spiritual Needs

ZusammenfassungViele Patient*innen mit chronischen Erkrankungen haben dezidierte existenzielle und spirituelle Bedürfnisse, die aber in der Routineversorgung kaum berücksichtigt werden – am ehesten noch in der palliativen Versorgung. Wenn man diese Bedürfnisse in der Versorgung berücksichtigen möchte, da sich die Spiritualität einer Person als wichtige Ressource im Umgang mit schwierigen Lebenssituationen erwiesen hat, dann müssen diese auch dokumentiert werden. Kritischer Punkt ist hierbei, dass die Frage nach den spirituellen Bedürfnissen auch in der Anamnese-Erhebung einbezogen ist. Dies ist in einer standardisierten und strukturierten Form mit dem deutschsprachigen Spiritual Needs Fragebogen (SpNQ) möglich. Eine zusätzliche, noch kürzere und damit leichter zu implementierende Möglichkeit ist die Nutzung des SpNQ-Screeners mit 10 Items, der in einer Gruppe von 391 Patient*innen mit Tumorerkrankungen eine gute interne Konsistenz aufwies (Cronbachs alpha=0,86). Bei der assistierten Beantwortung des SpNQ-Screeners können sich bereits frühzeitig Gespräche ergeben, die im Sinne des Spiritual Care-Ansatzes zu verstehen sind und die von den Patient*innen zumeist als hilfreich und wertschätzend erachtet werden.

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