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Biomedical subjects

Barbara Pesut

Publications and source records attributed to Barbara Pesut.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

To describe or prescribe: assumptions underlying a prescriptive nursing process approach to spiritual care.

Increasing attention is being paid to spirituality in nursing practice. Much of the literature on spiritual care uses the nursing process to describe this aspect of care. However, the use of the nursing process in the area of spirituality may be problematic, depending upon the understandings of the nature and intent of this process. Is it primarily a descriptive process meant to make visible the nursing actions to provide spiritual support, or is it a prescriptive process meant to guide nursing actions for intervening in the spirituality of patients? A prescriptive nursing process approach implies influencing, and in some cases reframing, the spirituality of patients and thereby extends beyond general notions of spiritual support. In this paper we discuss four problematic assumptions that form the basis for a prescriptive approach to spiritual care. We conclude that this approach extends the nursing role beyond appropriate professional boundaries, making it ethically problematic.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2005

Attributes of spiritual care in nursing practice.

Nurses are increasingly being called on to engage in spiritual care with their patients. A diverse body of theoretical and empirical literature addresses spirituality as it relates to nursing practice, yet there is little consensus about what spiritual nursing care entails. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize spiritual care in relation to nursing practice. A brief historical review indicates that our current understandings of spiritual nursing care have been shaped by three eras characterized by particular approaches: the religious approach, the scientific approach, and the existential approach. We draw elements from each of these approaches to propose attributes of spiritual care in the context of nursing practice. We propose that spiritual nursing care is an intuitive, interpersonal, altruistic, and integrative expression that is contingent on the nurse's awareness of the transcendent dimension of life but that reflects the patient's reality.

Holistic Nursing↗
PubMed2004

Spiritual caregiving at the juncture of religion, culture, and state.

In response to the increasing social diversity of health-care recipients, nurse scholars have turned their attention to developing theoretical foundations for culturally responsive and spiritually sensitive nursing practice. However, despite the potential overlap between these 2 areas, there has been little exploration of the intersections between culture and spirituality. The authors present the findings of an interpretive descriptive pilot study that examined the contexts of intercultural spiritual caregiving from the perspectives of nurses and chaplains. The findings point to the need for health-care professionals to cultivate an internal space in which to provide spiritual care and to seek spiritual points of connection amidst diverse faith and cultural traditions. The contexts of current practice environments, as well as the social setting of a pluralistic and secular state, shape the dynamics of spiritual caregiving. The findings invite postcolonial, critical analyses of contemporary conceptions of spirituality and spiritual caregiving, and call for a rethinking of the trend towards de-emphasizing creedal religions in the quest for a universal spiritual experience.

Canada↗
PubMed2002

The development of nursing students' spirituality and spiritual care-giving.

Nursing education programs are being increasingly challenged to incorporate spirituality and spiritual care-giving into the curriculum. The purposes of this study were to explore how students in a baccalaureate curriculum perceived their spirituality and spiritual health, and their perceptions of spiritual nursing care. Students in the first and fourth years of the program filled out a survey that included a spiritual well-being scale and several open-ended questions. Overall, students had a strong awareness of personal spirituality and a high level of spiritual health. They identified a number of behaviours and characteristics of the nurse that facilitated spiritual nursing care. Fourth year students demonstrated a more patient-centered approach to spiritual care. They placed less emphasis on the nurse's agenda and qualities and more on supporting the patient's beliefs.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Fundamental or foundational obligation? Problematizing the ethical call to spiritual care in nursing.

Spiritual nursing care is increasingly being cited in the nursing literature as a fundamental ethical obligation. This obligation is based upon the argument that nurses provide holistic care, spirituality is a universal dimension of the person, and so nurses should care for the spiritual dimension. However, the literature on the spiritual dimension in nursing illustrates widely differing foundational assumptions about this important aspect of care. The philosophic categories of humanism, theism, and monism can be used to illustrate the different understandings of the spiritual dimension, and the implications of these understandings for the competence of the nurse and the nature of the nurse-patient interaction in the context of spiritual care.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Developing spirituality in the curriculum: worldviews, intrapersonal connectedness, interpersonal connectedness.

Although many nursing education programs are searching for ways to incorporate spirituality into the curriculum, how this should be done remains a point of debate. A number of models and teaching strategies have been posed in the literature. This article explores how definitions of spirituality can inform the integration of this important concept into the curriculum. Three key themes from definitions of spirituality in the literature are discussed: worldviews, intrapersonal connectedness, and interpersonal connectedness. Strategies are presented for facilitating discussions around worldviews and for fostering a climate that promotes intra- and interpersonal connectedness for students and faculty.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗