Providing spiritual care in end-stage cardiac failure

Spirituality, Spiritual Well-Being, and Spiritual Coping in Advanced Heart Failure: Review of the Literature

Heart failure is a chronic and terminal disease that affects a significant portion of the U.S. population. It is marked by considerable suffering, for which palliative care has been recommended. Palliative care standards require the inclusion of spiritual care, but there is a paucity of literature supporting effective spiritual interventions for the heart failure population. A literature search resulted in 30 articles meeting the criteria for review of spirituality and spiritual coping in the heart failure population. Findings within this body of literature include descriptive evidence of the uniqueness of spirituality in this population, quantitative and qualitative approaches to inquiry, theoretical models of spiritual coping, and proposed interventions. The article concludes with implications for future research and practice.

Importance of spiritual care for cardiac patients admitted to coronary care units in the Gaza Strip: patients' perception

PURPOSE

This study aimed to assess the perception of hospitalized cardiac patients in coronary care units (CCUs) in the Gaza Strip about the importance of assessing and providing spiritual care to them.

DESIGN

This was a cross-sectional study.

METHODS

A valid and reliable instrument previously developed by Musa was used to assess patients' perception about the importance of assessing spiritual needs and providing spiritual care to cardiac patients admitted to CCUs.

FINDINGS

Out of 279 cardiac patients, 275 (response rate of 98.6%) agreed to be involved in this study. Results revealed that both assessing spiritual needs (69.69%) and providing spiritual care (76.97%) were very important to cardiac patients with rating spiritual care intervention as more important than spiritual assessment.

CONCLUSIONS

Assessing and providing spiritual care is crucial to cardiac patients. Therefore, health policy makers need to pay more attention to this group of vulnerable patients and need to adopt a spiritual care policy into the Palestinian health care system, which might help to decrease their stress, length of hospitalization, and the cost of treatment.

The effects of spirituality and religion on outcomes in patients with chronic heart failure

Heart failure (HF) is a chronic progressive disease with marked morbidity and mortality. Patients enduring this condition suffer from fluctuations in symptom burden such as fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, sexual dysfunction, dramatic changes in body image and depression. As physicians, we often ask patients to trust in our ability to ameliorate their symptoms, but oftentimes we do not hold all of the answers, and our best efforts are only modestly effective. The suffering endured by these individuals and their families may even call into question one's faith in a higher power and portends to significant spiritual struggle. In the face of incurable and chronic physical conditions, it seems logical that patients would seek alternative or ancillary methods, notably spiritual ones, to improve their ability to deal with their condition. Although difficult to study, spirituality has been evaluated and deemed to have a beneficial effect on multiple measures including global quality of life, depression and medical compliance in the treatment of patients with HF. The model of HF treatment incorporates a multidisciplinary approach. This should involve coordination between primary care, cardiology, palliative care, nursing, patients and, importantly, individuals providing psychosocial as well as spiritual support. This review intends to outline the current understanding and necessity of spirituality's influence on those suffering from HF.