Spiritual Care for Older People

Table of Contents

Chapter 2: Literature Review4

The research context4

Setting the scene5

Section One: Part (a)6

Theoretical perspectives on defining spirituality6

Understanding the concept of spirituality6

Personal relationships8

The nature, qualities and manifestations of spirituality10

Conclusions12

Section One: Part (b)14

Theoretical perspectives on the relationship between spirituality and religion14

A complementary relationship15

Separate entities15

Religion as a means of expressing spirituality17

Culture changes in society over recent times19

Conclusions22

Section Two: Theoretical perspectives on the experience of spiritual care24

Introduction24

The lack of a working definition24

A need exists26

Addressing the need26

Providing spiritual care in long term care28

Spiritual care - whose role is it?29

Spiritual needs of the older people31

Addressing spiritual needs35

Institutional resistance to spiritual care37

Embarrassment and / or unimportance of spirituality39

Implications for spiritual care41

Spiritual care practice42

'Emotional labour'44

Assessing Spiritual Needs44

Spiritual Care: An Integrated Part of Healthcare Profession48

Healthcare, Spirituality and Religion52

Family members and spiritual care56

Training in spiritual care57

The current situation57

Recognising the need for change59

What has been done?62

Moving forward62

Conclusions65

Future directions71

Bibliography75

Spiritual Care for Older People

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The research context

This study presents a shift in perspective from research studies to date in that it will explore the perceived gap in the literature of how spiritual care is viewed and managed for older people in faith and non-faith long-term residential homes in Scotland. In order to arrive at? a more complete understanding of spiritual care, I will also explore the multiple perspectives of older people who reside in the homes, their family members and their care providers.

This study builds upon the work of Mc Sherry (2002) who indicated a limitation in his 1997 study of nurses' perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care. He claimed that he was not afforded the opportunity to establish the participants' personal understandings of spiritual care because of the quantitative nature of his study. This limitation suggested the need for a qualitative study to fill this gap, which may provide additional information for understanding spiritual care.

Initially each study was read to enable a comprehensive understanding of the collective body of research. Thereafter, the process was selective; guided by both potential to shed light on the research topic and capacity to address the research questions of the study. Some research material, although relating to the concepts of spirituality and religion was excluded on account of the florid, incoherent language, which seemed to obscure and mystify, rather than clarify the meanings of these concepts. Some quantitative studies were also rejected on the grounds that individual case data were not available in the reporting of the findings of the studies.

This chapter will conclude by mapping the key issues that were identified in the literature review in relation to spiritual care, and that will inform the thesis and contextualise later analysis. The review covered a large body of theoretical and empirical literature which informed the exploration of the concepts of spirituality and religion in relation to spiritual care for older people in long-term care. It ranged across qualitative and quantitative empirical studies, together with theoretical and conceptual literature that evidenced concern for the inter-relatedness of these concepts.

Setting the scene

This chapter sets the scene for the thesis by presenting the ...