Spiritual lives of children with cancer: A qualitative descriptive study in Lithuania.

PURPOSE: To explore the experience and perception of spiritual lives of children with cancer. DESIGN AND METHODS: A qualitative descriptive study included the collection of narratives on spiritual lives of children drawn from two university hospitals in Lithuania in the form of a semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Purposive sample of twenty-seven hospitalized children (5-12 y.) with non-terminal stage of cancer participated in the study. RESULTS: The final four themes emerged from across all the questions as: being normal, community, comfort and connections with God. CONCLUSIONS: Children with cancer needed to maintain as normal a life as posssible, despite being ill and undergoing treatment. Connections with family and friends were echoed in all the themes that emerged in the study. Children seemed to own their views about needing to pray or not; their needs revolved around asking for health and remission of their illness. Children diagnosed with cancer have a unique understanding of spirituality that is linked to their age, gender, and family composition. These ideas change as children develop and mature. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The need to explore the spiritual lives of children with life threatening illnesses from an early age is evident. Health professionals need to recognize that a child is the product of their family, their community, their culture and their spirituality. Conversations with children about what God means to them and how prayer supports them, is essential. The opinion that spirituality topic might be hardly understood or too sensitive to children is rejected by the researchers.

Spiritual Wellbeing of Cancer Patients: What Health-Related Factors Matter?

This study aimed to determine the predictors of spiritual wellbeing of non-terminal stage cancer patients hospitalized in oncology units in Lithuania. An exploratory cross-sectional study design was employed. During structured face-to-face interviews, 226 cancer patients hospitalized in oncology units responded about their spiritual wellbeing, perception of happiness, satisfaction with life, pain intensity, levels of education and physical functioning, and length of inpatient stay. A set of standardized tools were used: spiritual wellbeing scale SHALOM, brief multidimensional life satisfaction scale, Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, Barthel Index questionnaire, and verbal pain intensity scale. Additionally, social- and health-related factors were included in data analyses. Structural equation modeling was adapted for a comprehensive assessment of the mediating effect of spiritual wellbeing on the relationship between different health- and value-related factors. The overall fit of the structural model was generally good: [Formula: see text] = 66.94 (χ2/df = 2.31), CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.08, and SRMR = 0.06. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics) version 24.0 and Mplus version 8.2. Level of happiness, life satisfaction, and spiritual wellbeing scored in the moderate upper range. The communal domain of spiritual wellbeing rated with the highest mean score and transcendental domain with the lowest score. Education (b = 0.208, p = 0.004), physical functioning (b = 0.171, p = 0.025), and hospital duration (b = - 0.240, p = 0.001) were significant predictors of spiritual wellbeing. Happiness and life satisfaction were negatively influenced by pain intensity, which ranged from mild to moderate. Levels of education, physical functioning, and length of hospital stay predict spiritual wellbeing of non-terminally ill cancer patients. Happiness, as well as life satisfaction, was negatively predicted by pain intensity but had no direct influence on spiritual wellbeing of cancer patients. Spiritual wellbeing positively influences emotional wellbeing (happiness and life satisfaction), and its influence is stronger than the negative influence of physical pain has on emotional wellbeing.

Perceptions of Clergy Regarding the Provision of Spiritual Care in Lithuanian Hospitals for Cancer Patients.

This paper presents an analysis of narratives drawn from research that examined the views of clergy in regard to the provision of spiritual care in Lithuanian hospitals. The purpose of this research was to examine the shared responsibilities between what nurses do in the provision of holistic care and that of the clergy who are employed to provide spiritual care. A thematic analysis was undertaken, guided by questions related to how spirituality was perceived by the clergy; how spiritual care was defined; clergy's perceptions to nurses' provision of spiritual care, and whether there was a delineation between these two roles. Findings showed that although the clergy believed that their role was important in the provision of spiritual care, both nurses and clergy acknowledged that both played a role in spiritual support. However, scope of practice for each role was not yet defined. For nurses and clergy to understand their roles and the boundaries between them, clear standards of practice need to be developed.

General and professional values of student nurses and nurse educators.

AIM: The aim of this study was to explore and compare the self-reported general and professional values in undergraduate student nurses and nurse educators in Lithuania. BACKGROUND: Contemporary nursing requires strong moral motivation and clear values as nurses confront many ethical dilemas in their practice. Students acquire essential values of the nursing profession through the appropriate role modelling of their educators. Nursing students seek to become capable in providing ethical and professional patient care while their educators attempt to model desired behaviours. DESIGN: A national cross-sectional comparative study was carried out in March 2011. Four-hundred eight respondents participated: 316 undergraduate nursing students and 92 nurse educators. METHODS: A 57-item questionnaire was delivered to nursing programs at three universities and six colleges. Permission to conduct the study was granted by The Center on Bioethics. RESULTS: Student nurses and their educators rated the general value of altruism equally. Educators, in comparison with students, ranked honesty and intellectualism significantly higher and more often admired truth-telling in any circumstance. Students were more likely to avoid intellectual challenges in reading and placed lower importance on academic qualifications for career advancement. The professional nursing values of honesty, intellectualism and authority were ranked significantly higher by nurse educators than student nurses. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed differences in self-reported general and professional values in undergraduate student nurses and nurse educators. The values of nurse educators were not always stronger than those of students. Positive relationships between particular general and professional values in both students and educators confirmed the link between professional and personal values.

Preparing for the transition from clinical practice to academia.

Although education is an essential component of good nursing practice, clinical practice proficiency does not equate to competence in academia. Expert clinicians are not automatically expert educators. However, more and more academic institutions are relying on full-time clinicians to assume academic teaching positions. The decision to transition from clinical practice to academia requires careful consideration of numerous personal and professional issues. The purpose of this brief overview is to offer insight and guidance for nursing professionals embarking on this journey.

Evaluating international clinical education encounters in Lithuania.

BACKGROUND: Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, nurses from various countries have organized clinical education sessions in Lithuania to share expertise. Evaluation of these sessions has not been completed or disseminated. This study provides an evaluation of international continuing nursing education sessions in Lithuania. METHODS: In the late 1990s, a group of nurses and health care professionals from a local college conducted educational symposia for Lithuanian nurses. Those who participated in at least one symposium were asked to complete questionnaires regarding the educational experience. A holistic framework was used to describe the experiences of U.S. and Lithuanian nurses. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics indicated the Lithuanian nurses confirmed or learned new information and adapted it to their practice. The educational material was less challenging in the larger town of Kaunas than in the smaller area of Vilkaviskis. Suggestions for improvement included teaching in smaller groups to encourage discussion and, for the U.S. nurses, acquiring more information about the Lithuanian culture before the teaching trip. CONCLUSIONS: The goals of the symposia, to share knowledge and establish lasting relationships with Lithuanian nurses, were met. In addition, participants provided important advice for future educational trips.

Spiritual care as perceived by Lithuanian student nurses and nurse educators: A national survey.

BACKGROUND: Political restrictions during 50years of Soviet occupation discouraged expressions of spirituality among Lithuanians. THE AIM: The aim of this paper is to describe Lithuanian nursing educators' and students' perception of spiritual care in a post-Soviet context. DESIGN AND SETTINGS: This cross-sectional study was carried out among student nurses and nursing educators at three universities and six colleges in Lithuania. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: The questionnaire developed by Scott (1959) and supplemented by Martin Johnson (1983) was distributed to 316 nursing students in the 3rd and 4th years of studies and 92 nurse educators (N=408). RESULTS: Student nurses and their educators rated general and professional values of religiousness equally; although students tended to dislike atheistic behavior more than educators. Four main categories associated with perceptions of spirituality in nursing care emerged from the student nurses: attributes of spiritual care, advantages of spiritual care, religiousness in spiritual care, and nurse-patient collaboration and communication. Themes from nurse educators paralleled the same first three themes but not the last one. CONCLUSIONS: Student nurses and nurse educators acknowledged the importance of spiritual care for patients as well as for care providers - nurses. In many cases spiritual care was defined by nursing students and nurse educators as faith and religiousness. Being a religious person, both for students and educators, or having spiritual aspects in students' personal lives influenced the perception of religious reflection.