Educational Intervention in Nursing:Spiritual Care during Chronic Illness

Abstract

Objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of the educational intervention known as Spiritual Nursing Care: Integrality of the Human Being in the Care Provided by Nursing Personnel Working with Chronically Ill Patients. Method: An educational intervention was designed to strengthen the perception of spirituality and the spiritual care provided by the nursing staff. A quasi experimental design was proposed, with a control and experimental group and pre and post-test evaluation. Nurses and nursing assistants from three clinical institutions, chosen through non-probabilistic sampling, were selected 1:1 for convenience and allocation to the experimental group (n = 112) and the control group (n = 110). Results: The intervention significantly modified the total final perception of spirituality and spiritual care (p ≤ 0.016), with an effect size of d = 0.4 and p = 0.84. It was effective in significantly changing the perception of spirituality and total spiritual care (p ≤ 0.001), as well as the subscales concerning perception of spirituality, spiritual care and personalized care (p ≤ 0.001); However, the subscale on perception of final spiritual care showed no significant differences when the groups were compared (p ≤ 0.024). Groups (p ≤ 0.024). Conclusions: The intervention was effective in modifying the perception of spirituality and spiritual care. However, its effectiveness should be checked in environments different from the one in this study. Moreover, the need to train nurses in this area is evident, so spiritual care can be implemented in practice as part of the care provided to those with a chronic illness.