Spirituality among nursing home residents: a phenomenology of the experience of spirituality in late life

ABSTRACT

Spirituality can be a valuable resource for older adults, in particular to frail and vulnerable older people such as nursing home residents. The present study aimed to describe the essence of the experience of spirituality through the perspective of the nursing home residents themselves. A purposive sample of 16 nursing home residents were interviewed following a transcendental phenomenological method. Analyses of the verbalized interviews identified seven superordinate themes including ‘feelings of support and trust’, ‘searching for meaning and finding answers’, and ‘a perspective beyond death’.

KEYWORDS:

• Spirituality
• religion
• meaning
• nursing home
• old age

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All presented quotes were translated from Dutch into English by the first author in collaboration with the third author and a bilingual person.

2. Although agreement was reached on a definition of spirituality in response to two conferences on whole-person care which focused, amongst other things, on the conceptualization problem (Creating More Compassionate Systems of Care (November 2012) and On Improving the Spiritual Dimension of Whole Person Care: The Transformational Role of Compassion, Love and Forgiveness in Health Care (January 2013)). The following definition was proposed: “Spirituality is a dynamic and intrinsic aspect of humanity through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence, and experience relationship to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred. Spirituality is expressed through beliefs, values, traditions, and practices.” (Puchalski, Vitillo, Hull, & Reller, 2014).

3. One participant refused to report her exact age, but indicated to be older than 80 years old.

4. Nursing homes decided themselves who had in-house the best understanding of the spiritual identity of their residents. The selected individuals functioned as gatekeepers who decided which residents would be eligible for participation based on, taking the inclusion criteria into account, their close relationship with the residents and their familiarity with the residents spiritual needs.

5. No additional information was given to the participants regarding the definition of the concept spirituality.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the KU Leuven [StG/15/004BF].