A 'near-life experience': lived experiences of spirituality from the perspective of people who have been subject to inpatient psychiatric care.

Aims: To describe lived experiences of spirituality from the perspective of people who have been subject to inpatient psychiatric care and to interpret these experiences from an understanding of health as dialectical.

Methods: After approval from a regional ethical board, eleven participants were recruited from two organisations for people with mental health problems. Participants were asked to narrate about spiritual experiences and occasions where such experiences had come close.

Nursing and midwifery students' perceptions of spirituality, spiritual care, and spiritual care competency: A prospective, longitudinal, correlational European study.

Background: Nurses and midwives care for people at some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, so it is essential that they have the skills to give care which is compassionate, dignified, holistic and person-centred. Holistic care includes spiritual care which is concerned with helping people whose beliefs, values and sense of meaning, purpose and connection is challenged by birth, illness or death. Spiritual care is expected of nurses/midwives but they feel least prepared for this part of their role.

The human being's spiritual experiences in a mental healthcare context; their positive and negative meaning and impact on health--a hermeneutic approach.

The study aims at describing different meanings of patients' spiritual experiences and their impact on patients' health in mental healthcare. The different contents of patients' spiritual experiences are often understood by caregivers as the expressions of patients' religious speculation. The study has a hermeneutic approach, inspired by Gadamer.

Existential and spiritual needs in mental health care: an ethical and holistic perspective.

This study illuminates how existential needs and spiritual needs are connected with health care ethics and individuals' mental health and well-being. The term existential needs is defined as the necessity of experiencing life as meaningful, whereas the term spiritual needs is defined as the need of deliverance from despair, guilt and/or sin, and of pastoral care. It discusses whether or not patients' needs are holistically addressed in Western health care systems that neglect patients' existential and spiritual needs, because of their biomedical view of Man which recognizes only patients' physical needs.

Patients' conceptions of how the spiritual dimension is addressed in mental health care: a qualitative study.

Aim: This paper reports a study to describe patients' conceptions of how the spiritual dimension is addressed in mental health care.

Background: Spirituality is a broad concept, and is highly subjective, multidimensional and difficult to define. Spirituality and religiousness are two separate concepts but have several common features.

How the spiritual dimension is addressed in psychiatric patient-nurse relationships.

Aim: This paper reports a study describing nurses' conceptions of how the spiritual dimension is addressed in psychiatric patient-nurse relationships.

Background: In psychiatric care, it is essential that patient-nurse relationships be built on a holistic view. In this context, nursing research shows that there is a lack of integration of the spiritual dimension.