Walker And Avant's Eight-Step Concept Analysis Of Spiritual Care In Nursing

Introduction

The PICOT statement: (Population) In critical care patients, (Intervention) does a standard spirituality assessment (Comparison), compared to standard care without including a standard spirituality assessment, (Outcome) impact choices of treatment plan and outlook on condition, (Time) throughout their hospital stay. Within critical care this is a lot happening to the patient for the nurse to pay attention to. The nurse needs to assess the patient very carefully to make sure no changes have occurred and if they did, did the condition worsen or get better. The patient is enduring some of the most intense care they may have ever experienced. It is important to talk to the patient and understand if they know what they are going through.

They used Walker and Avant’s eight-step concept analysis approach to support the effect of spirituality in the care of the patient. When using this eight-step concept they found spiritual care has a positive effect on the patients healing and the spiritual awareness for the nurse (Ramezani, Ahmadi, Mohammadi, & Kazemnejad, 2014). This is vital to my PICOT because it talks about numerous attributes such as healing presence, intuitive sense, patient-centeredness, exploration of the spiritual perspective, and creation of a spiritually nurturing environment which are necessary formulate a healing component to the treatment plan. Then another article by Savel and Munro, titled The Importance of Spirituality in Patient-Centered Care, which focus on how in critical care the pay close attention to the body itself, but do not include holistic care for the patient. They explain how the nurse needs to identify if the patient already has some form of spiritual background or if they would like some form of spiritual guidance during this difficult time in their life. According to Savel and Munro, “culture and spirituality plays an important part how the decision the patient makes for their treatment plan” (2014). This article is essential to my PICOT statement because it focuses on the fact the patient needs to be focused on as a whole person and not just an illness. One

Smyth uses a two-phase research study with questionnaires to assess how nurses effectively use spirituality on their acute care units. He found that nurses do not have a clear definition of spirituality or concept of it, but understand it is vital to patient care (Smyth, 2011). This is vital to my PICOT statement because it shows nurses want to implement a spiritual assessment, but they need a clearer understanding of what spirituality includes to better help the patient. Another article is Spirituality Self-care Effects on Quality of Life for Patients Diagnosed with Chronic Illness by White. This article expands on the Orem’s self-care deficit including spiritual self-care practices, using a study looking at the impact integrating spirituality has on the health of the patient. They found, “the use of spirituality self-care practices can promote quality of life through participation in interpersonal and intrapersonal activities that give meaning to life” (White, 2013). This is important to my PICOT because it shows the positive effects of spirituality on the quality of life the patient can have with it included versus the outcome without it. The final article is Spiritual care at the end of life, written by Wynne. Wynne looks at how health care professionals should include spirituality especially in palliative care because it