Religion In Nursing

The beginnings of nursing can be traced back to many ancient cultures, such as those in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Israel. In its early years, nursing was closely entwined with religious orders and faith communities. During the Christian crusades, nursing orders such as the knight of st. John, the Teutonic knights and the knights of st. Lazarus was established, persisting even today. Individual deacons, deaconesses, and roman matrons cared for sick individuals and were instrumental in the organization and building places for the sick. Thus, nurses have provided spiritual care together with physiological care in religious communities in a variety of ways for century.1 Religion has played an important part in the development of nursing as a profession.
Placing spiritual need and spiritual care within this framework, has proved to be very helpful, for both philosophical and practical reasons. Firstly spiritual care can become more tangible as well as more assessable. And secondly, the types of knowledge utilized by the Nursing Process - practice wisdom, ethics of practice, and scientific knowledge (Ziegler et al, 1986:14-18) - are all relevant to assessing spiritual needs and planning spiritual care. It can also then be documented in nursing care plans, to ensure a continuity of care.3
Research has shown a positive relationship between spirituality, religion, and health – religious attendance is enhances health. Studies have also shown that nurses with a religious affiliation have a stronger spiritual base and are more likely to provide spiritual care in practice (Cavendish, Luise, Russo, Mitzeliotis, Bauer, Bajo, et al., 2004). Even though a nurse has a spiritual base, it cannot be assumed that a nurse will provide spiritual care (Cavendish, et al., 2004). Health care administrators and nurse managers must create an environment that ensures the nurse’s own spirituality is cultivated and at the same time promotes the systematic provision of spiritual care to patients. Likewise, nurse educators must include spiritual assessment/care within nursing curricula. Including spiritual content will help ensure that nursing graduates have a basic understanding of the relationship between spirituality and health, and will have been afforded opportunities for personal spiritual awareness.4 (Cavendish, R., Luise, B., Russo, D., Mitzeliotis, C., Bauer, M., & Bajo, M.A.M., (2004). Spiritual perspectives of nurses in the United States relevant for education and practice. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 26,