Abstract:
Spiritual and religious beliefs influence how individuals view death and dying. Nurses focus on the physiological, safety, and emotional needs of the patient, and sometimes the spiritual needs may be neglected (Reed, 1987). Nurses need to identify the spiritual needs to delivery holistic care. The purpose of this study is to compare perspectives of the spirituality and well-being of the non-terminally ill hospitalized and terminally ill hospitalized adults and to determine if there is a relationship between spirituality and well-being. This is a replication of Reed’s (1987) study. The Systemic Organization (Friedemann, Mouch, & Racey, 2002) is the framework that guides the study. All terminally ill patients hospitalized on the oncology or hospice units from two hospitals in the Lafayette, Indiana will be evaluated during a 6 month period. The seriously ill patients will be patients admitted to the intensive care units and step-down units. The anticipated number of participants is 50 terminally ill patients and 50 seriously ill patients selected from an anticipated 100 terminally ill patients and 100 seriously ill patients. The Spiritual Perspective Scale (SPS) and Index of Well-Being (IWB) will be used to measure the spirituality and well-being of the participants. Findings will provide information for nurses about the perspectives on spiritual care.
