Spiritual Care

Spiritual care is an essential aspect of any individual that must be explored in order for true healing to take place. All practitioners, including Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (PNP) serving adolescent population, must assess spirituality as part of the standard not only during the treatment of the disease process, but also as part of the preventative care. Adolescence is a unique period starting at approximately age 10 and lasting through the age 21, at which time many changes take place including, but not limited to, physiological as well as bio-psychosocial changes (Neinstein, 2008). It is a period during which a child finds self at the crossroads of not seeing self as a child, but yet to be accepted as an adult by the Western society.

It is a period when parents attempt to hold on to their children by setting limits and rules. Such power struggle, according to Hagan, Shaw, and Duncan (2008), may bring about “…mood swings and attempts at independence can trigger volatile arguments and challenges to rules” (p. 518). Participation in such activities as sports, educational clubs leads to further separation from parents allowing greater influence from peers and other non-parental role models. Some adolescents, depending on their circumstance and support system, may find selves participating in gang related activities. Moreover, with increased privileges, such as the ability to hold driving and employment permits some adolescents gain increased level of liberation from their parents and devote amplified amounts of his or her time to peers, placing parents further in the background. It is a period of experimentation and exploration, greater than at any other stage in the adolescent life due to the feeling of invincibility and immortality as well as greater reliance on emotional self rather than rationalization of circumstances leading to risk taking

Along with the burden of going through stages of adolescents, many experience other aspects of life, such as parent’s divorce, death, birth, family financial struggle, homelessness, and illness, etc. that may further intensify this experience. According to Cotton, Larkin, Hoopes, Cromer, and Rosenthal (2005) review of literature, spirituality and believe in the higher power are found to be an essential part of American adolescents’ life “95% reporting a belief in God, 80% saying that religion is important in their lives, 80% reporting using prayer, and over 50% attending religious services at least monthly” (p. 529e8) “The extent of one’s faith is influenced by the circumstances of one’s life” (Haley, 2014, p.