| Summary: | 碩士 === 南華大學 === 生死學研究所 === 93 === The purpose of this study was to investigate the spiritual care in the hospice world from a hospice volunteers’ perspective. A phenomenological approach was used in this case study. The survey explored some difficulties that hospice volunteers’ perspectives encountered in these four aspects: First, the volunteers did not know how to identify the appropriate time to care for patients. Second, the volunteers did not know how to evaluate the effectiveness of the care. Third, they lacked the awareness of demonic spirits and they did not have enough experience identifying spiritual problems. Fourth, time and space were limited.
In overview, there were four viewpoints from interviewing hospice volunteers about their caring experience: (1) It’s tough to do spiritual caring -- if patients’ problems didn’t get proper care because of the temporality, volunteers will have problems doing spiritual care. (2) Developing close relationships with patients -- the development of close relationships needs time to cultivate, and to build two-way communication. (3) Interactive skills need to be recognized and connected with the patients’ psychological problems and their fate -- the effects of physical care are limited because the volunteers did not recognize patients’ needs and problems. (4) Thus far, spiritual care has not been effective in helping the patients to seek their appropriate fate when they face death. The hospice volunteers should listen to patients’ words and encourage them. We might say that “ The patients have to decide their way; the volunteers provide the spiritual nurturing.”
Finally, it is absolutely essential to have the necessary temporality to provide proper spiritual care. When medical care system fails to heal the patients completely, the hospice volunteers provide the best spiritual care to encourage their spiritual life.
|
|---|
