Article Text
Abstract
Background For many people the last phase of life rouses the question concerning to spiritual life. If medical workers like to enhance the quality of life of dying patients, palliative care should encompass whole personality of human being and its needs.
Aim I like to share some outcomes from research on spiritual care competencies of health care workers in Slovakia arising from project KEGA034KU-4/2013: “Meeting the spiritual needs of dying patients in terms of health care workers in terms of practice”.
Methods Survey – 447 Standardised Questionnaires – The Spiritual Care Competence Scale using five-level psychometric Likert scale Time: June 2014–July 2015 Place: Slovakia. Results processed by analysis of variance in its entirety as well as by individual domains.
Results The overall average score for all participating health care workers is 3.72 – that means their competencies are high; Modus 4; Variance 1.31; standard deviation 1.13 and absolute deviation 0.92. Correlation with average score is significant at the p < 0.01 level for sex 0.000; age 0.005 and practice length 0.002. Correlation with faith is significant only at the p < 0.05 level with result 0.011.
Statistically significant results in correlations in individual domains are to sex in five domains, to age in four domains and practice length in four domains.
Conclusion Dying is not leaving cold those who are in the presence of dying. Health care workers should act in the best manner to achieve satisfaction of all needs, spiritual needs including. For that reason they must be well prepared and have the appropriate competencies.