Diagnosis of a life-limiting illness challenges the world of a patient, and spiritual resources are required to cope with the threat to mortality. So says the introduction to a recently released book entitled Spiritual Care in Palliative Care – What It Is and Why It Matters.
The book, edited by Megan C Best and published by Springer Nature Switzerland, is structured to give a detailed understanding of the importance of spirituality for patients approaching the end of life as well as the impact of spiritual care on patients, families and carers.
An international panel of experts has contributed to this first comprehensive guide to spiritual care in palliative care settings ranging from neonatal to aged care, combining the theoretical underpinnings of spirituality research with practical applications for its introduction into patient care.
Spiritual care refers to any support related to questions about life’s meaning, depending on the person’s values and beliefs. It is much broader than formal religious practices. Today, a minority of people in the Western world express their spirituality primarily through religious observance.
Ways to identify and assess patients’ spiritual needs are explained in the book. The experience of existential suffering is also explored along with discussion of the ways it can manifest and how it can be addressed.
Spiritual Care for the Bereaved is a chapter by Professor Samar Aoun, Perron Institute Chair of Palliative Care at The University of Western Australia, and Adjunct Professor Bruce Rumbold, at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and an honorary senior research fellow at the Perron Institute. Professor Rumbold is also an editor of the foundational Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare.
“While understandings of the nature and scope of spirituality vary, it is clear that spirituality is not only disrupted by bereavement but can also be a resource for living with bereavement,” Professor Aoun explained.
“Our chapter discusses how spiritual care both complements and critiques current approaches to bereavement care, and how bereavement care might incorporate and contribute to spiritual care.
“We use a public health framework, contending that the social aspects of bereavement are the least developed in most bereavement theory and therapy, and that a public health approach can restore them.
“For many people, protracted caregiving in the months or years leading into bereavement results in a narrowing, or better perhaps a focusing, of their purpose on caregiving tasks, with a consequent shrinking of their social networks.
“This issue is addressed through the public health Compassionate Connectors program, set up by Professor Aoun, which seeks to enhance the social networks providing support for dying people. Such networks facilitated by trained volunteers draw upon caregivers’ existing relationships, and additional caring helpers from community groups such as sporting clubs, service clubs and faith communities.
“The enhanced networks provide support not only during caregiving, but also through bereavement as family and friends can be supported by others who already know the person who has died.”