Spiritual well-being among critically ill patients: A literature review
Keywords:
Spiritual well-being; critically ill patients; literature review.Abstract
Background: Patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) face not only physiological problems but also psychological, social, and spiritual distress. Critical conditions, limited interaction with family, and invasive medical procedures often lead to spiritual distress, which can reduce patients’ quality of life.
Purpose: This article aims to describe the concept of spiritual well‑being and its application in nursing practice as part of holistic care for ICU patients
Methods: This paper is a literature review based on books and scientific articles published between 2000–2022, using the keywords spiritual well-being, ICU, nursing care, and spiritual nursing practice obtained from the PubMed, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, and Google Scholar databases.
Results: The results show that spiritual well-being consists of two dimensions: existential well-being (meaning and purpose in life) and religious well-being (relationship with God). Patients with good spiritual well‑being tend to demonstrate greater calmness, hope, and more adaptive coping abilities. In nursing practice, its implementation includes spiritual assessment, provision of religious support, therapeutic communication, collaboration with spiritual leaders, and optimization of family support.
Conclusion and recommendation: The promotion of spiritual well‑being is an essential component of ICU nursing practice, effective in enhancing patients’ holistic well‑being, and should be integrated into critical care nursing standards.
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