Spirituality in Health and Nursing Care

For more information, or to purchase these DVD's,
please contact Professor Doreen Westera here.

Spirituality (Length: 22 minutes)

This video program examines the concept of spirituality, exploring the diversity of meanings and themes given to the term and distinguishing it from religion. Various expressions of spirituality are illustrated. Viewers are stimulated to reflect upon their own spirituality.

Nurses and Spiritual Care (Length: 23 minutes)

This video program examines the rationale for and principles of nursing involvement in spiritual care, describes qualities in the nurse which are conducive to providing effective spiritual care, identifies specific spiritual interventions and discusses the partnership between nursing and pastoral care workers. Challenges and barriers to providing spiritual care are also explored.

Spiritual Assessment (Length: 35 minutes)

This video discusses the role of the nurse in spiritual assessment as well as the focus and principles of spiritual assessment. Stoll's Guidelines for Spiritual Assessment are used to interview three clients: a woman with fibromyalgia, a man who had villis adenoma and a woman who has manic depressive illness and who is HIV positive.

Spirituality in Mental Health Care (Length: 26 minutes)

This video focusses on two clients: one diagnosed with schizophrenia and one diagnosed with manic depressive illness. It explains the rationale for incorporating spirituality into mental health care. Expressions of spirituality that nurture mental health are described. How a mental illness could impact a person's life, including the spiritual dimension, is explored. Unique aspects relative to mental illness that have implications for spiritual care are discussed. Key spiritual issues and needs experienced by persons who have a mental illness are identified. The role of the nurse in providing spiritual care to persons experiencing mental illness is illustrated throughout the video.

Spirituality in Palliative Care (Length: 21 minutes)

This video illustrates how death and dying impacts on both a client's spirituality and family members' spirituality. Key spiritual issues and needs that come to the forefront for palliative care clients and their families are also identified. Spiritual resources that can be used in the journey through the dying process are explored. How a person's/family's spirituality may impact on responses to death is presented. The role of the nurse in providing spiritual care to palliative care clients and their families is illustrated throughout the video.

Spiritual Care and Life Threatening Illness (Length: 22 minutes)

This video illustrates how life threatening illness could impact a person's spirituality. Spiritual issues and needs are explored, as well as how a person's spirituality could impact upon his response to life threatening illness. Spiritual resources that can be used to deal with such illnesses are identified. All of these aspects are explored in an interview with a young adult diagnosed with leukemia. The role of the nurse in providing spiritual care to persons experiencing life threatening illness is illustrated throughout the video.

Spiritual Care in Gerontological Nursing (Length: 19 minutes)

Illustrated in the lives of two elderly people, this video focuses on how spirituality is expressed and nurtured in older adults. Key spiritual issues and spiritual needs are examined, including those pertaining to the cognitively impaired older adult. Qualities of the nurse or within the nurse-client relationship that are conducive to providing spiritual care to older adults is portrayed.

Spiritual Care & Chronic Health Problems (Length: 19 minutes)

This video identifies key characteristics of chronic health problems and how those characteristics could impact on a person's spirituality. Spiritual practices that nurture spirituality are described. Key spiritual issues and needs experienced by persons with chronic health problems are identified and illustrated by a man who is quadraplegic and a woman with fibromyalgia. The role of the nurse in providing spiritual care to persons experiencing chronic health problems is illustrated throughout the video.