How Nurses Understand Spirituality and Spiritual Care: A Critical Synthesis

Aims: To discover how nurses understand spirituality and spiritual care and what affects nurses’ understanding of these terms. Method: A literature search was conducted in CINAHL Plus, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar for research articles dated between 2010 and 2018 that were published in English. Using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program checklist for systematic reviews, nine articles met the inclusion criteria for this review. Most of these articles reported quantitative studies. Results: Although nurses recognize the importance of spirituality and spiritual care in nursing and have ascribed a diversity of meanings, there remains some confusion about what these terms mean. Several influences have been identified as shaping nurses understanding of spirituality and spiritual care, including education, nurses’ own spirituality or religious beliefs, age, years of clinical experience, and place of employment. Conclusions: This review identifies the need for further studies using qualitative approaches to investigate how nurses’ construct their understanding of spirituality and spiritual care and the dominant discourses nurses draw from to inform their understanding using qualitative approaches. Relevance to Clinical Practice: The insights gained by this review may be of value to nurse educators, managers, and policy makers in nursing education and the development of policies and practice guidelines.