Exploring the definition of spirituality and accompaniment from the perspective of BSN students

6^th World Nursing and Healthcare Conference

August 15-17, 2016 London, UK

Wen-Jane Cheng and Ya-Lie Ku

Instructor
Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Fooyin University

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

A structured spiritual care by the nurses may differ from that of a nursing student. Therefore, this study explored the definition of spirituality and accompaniment from the perspective of Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students. A spiritual course was offered to 36 BSN students from August 2014 to July 2015. The categories for the definition of spirituality included the students themselves; other people; faith; soul; integration; and the skills of empathy, listening, accompaniment, and care for understanding the empty feelings of other people and for striving to empathize with such feelings. The final definition of spirituality obtained from the BSN students was the relationship among themselves; other people; faith; soul; and the ability to understand the inner spiritual needs of other people by assisting them in attaining true spiritual contentment through the skills of empathy, listening, accompaniment, and caring. Furthermore, two categories of perceived and functional definitions of accompaniment were identified by the 36 BSN students. Regarding perceived accompaniment, nursing students could feel the happiness and harmony of their families, recall their memories of chatting with their grandfathers with the tendency to cry, and celebrate worthwhile things with the person being accompanied. Functional accompaniment provides happiness to the person being accompanied. Additionally, the person being accompanied can disclose emotions by chatting with the accompanier; through accompaniment, relationships can also become even closer. The authors suggest that future studies develop a protocol for nursing students for learning how to accompany clients through the skills of empathy, listening, and caring, thus sincerely satisfying the spirituality of clients by fulfilling their inner spiritual needs.

Biography :

Email: ns135@fy.edu.tw