Biological, Psychological And Social Components Of Spirituality

1.3.1 Spirituality can be viewed as the personal quality of being concerned with human spirit, a set of beliefs that sustain the individual through times of difficulty, the search for meaning and hope, one’s conception of the purpose of life, or the nature of one’s relationship with oneself, others, nature or God (as defined by individual) (Jolley.,and Moreland,.2011). It is the unifying life force that integrates the biological, psychological, and social components. It may include or exclude the religious components according to individual belief system (Baldacchino, 2011). It is less religious and more individualistic. According to Wilding (2007) spirituality gives meaning to life, provides hope, gives a reason to live and can influence

The Royal college of Nursing Guidelines(2014) and six core competences(Van Leeuwen and Cusveller,2004) specifies the ability in handling one’s own values and beliefs, addressing spiritual needs, conducting spiritual assessment, discussing and planning interventions, providing and evaluating spiritual care and integrating spiritual care into policy of the inpatient set up. It is a group of interventions that can act as a source of comfort, control of emotions, meaning to life and personal growth to patients who are confronted with chronic illness. It helps them to experience a sense of inner peace through God’s/higher power’s presence or finding rest in contact with nature (Van Leeuwen, 2013).Spiritual care is an emotionally sensitive, empathetic care of human “spirit” and not specific to religion.(Claire, Robert and

The reaction to post stroke disability may affect the patient’s capacity to lead a meaningful life. Patients usually feel loss of control over their lives, reduced social engagement, guilt, helplessness and even verbalize suicidal thoughts. Since spiritual well-being is one of the most important factors in human quality of life, alleviation of spiritual distress is an important task for health care staff, especially nurses. Also it was found that spirituality has a positive effect on self management of chronic diseases (Harvey, Silverman, 2007). One –third of all stroke survivors may present with mood disorders. Initial shock during the early weeks of cerebral stroke incidence, life style changes such as social isolation and sedentary behavior, dependency were identified as some of the factors that may contribute to mood disorders (Weli,2012;Hackett,2005).Application of a multi dimensional spiritual care approach for stroke patients, which included establishment of trust through active listening, has shown improvement in self care abilities of patient(Yang and Yeh,2012). A great scope for nurses to provide spiritual nursing care can be identified in care for stroke