Research Unit of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
BMC Palliat Care. 2022 Jan 4;21(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s12904-021-00886-0.
Denmark is considered one of the World's most secular societies, and spiritual matters are rarely verbalized in public. Patients report that their spiritual needs are not cared for sufficiently. For studying spiritual care and communication, twelve patients admitted to two Danish hospices were interviewed. Verbal and non-verbal communication between patients and healthcare professionals were identified and analysed. Methodically, the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used, and the findings were discussed through the lenses of existential psychology as well as philosophy and theory of caring sciences. Three themes were identified: 1. When death becomes present, 2. Direction of the initiative, and 3. Bodily presence and non-verbal communication. The encounter between patient and healthcare professional is greatly influenced by sensing, decoding, and interpretation. A perceived connection between the patient and the healthcare professional is of great importance as to how the patient experiences the relationship with the healthcare professional.The patient's perception and the patient's bodily experience of the healthcare professional are crucial to whether the patient opens up to the healthcare professional about thoughts and needs of a spiritual nature and initiates a conversation hereabout. In this way we found three dynamically connected movements toward spiritual care: 1. From secular to spiritual aspects of care 2. From bodily, sensory to verbal aspects of spiritual care and 3. From biomedical to spiritual communication and care. Thus, the non-verbal dimension becomes a prerequisite for the verbal dimension of spiritual communication to develop and unfold. The behaviour of the healthcare professionals, characterised by the way they move physically and the way they touch the patient, was found to be just as important as verbal conversation when it comes to spiritual care. The healthcare professional can create a connection to the patient through bodily and relational presence. Furthermore, the healthcare professionals should let their sensing and impressions guide them when meeting the patient in dialog about matters of a spiritual nature. Their perception of the patient and non-verbal communication are a prerequisite for being able to meet patient's spiritual needs with care and verbal communication.
丹麦被认为是世界上最世俗的社会之一，精神问题很少在公共场合被提及。患者报告说，他们的精神需求没有得到充分满足。为了研究精神关怀和沟通，我们采访了丹麦两家临终关怀机构的 12 名患者。我们识别并分析了患者与医护人员之间的言语和非言语沟通。我们采用解释现象学分析方法，通过存在主义心理学以及关怀科学的哲学和理论来讨论研究结果。确定了三个主题：1. 当死亡变得显而易见时；2. 主动权的方向；3. 身体存在和非言语沟通。患者与医护人员的相遇受到感知、解码和解释的极大影响。患者与医护人员之间的感知联系对于患者对与医护人员关系的体验至关重要。患者对医护人员的感知和身体体验对于患者是否向医护人员敞开心扉，谈论精神需求至关重要。通过这种方式，我们发现了三个与精神关怀动态相关的运动：1. 从世俗关怀到精神关怀；2. 从身体感官到精神关怀的言语方面；3. 从生物医学到精神沟通和关怀。因此，非言语维度成为精神沟通言语维度发展和展开的前提。医护人员的行为，其特点是他们身体的移动方式和他们与患者的接触方式，在精神关怀方面与言语对话同样重要。医护人员可以通过身体和关系的存在与患者建立联系。此外，医护人员在与患者就精神问题进行对话时，应该让自己的感知和印象来指导他们。他们对患者的感知和非言语沟通是他们能够以关怀和言语沟通满足患者精神需求的前提。
