Project title
'Spiritual distress in end of life community based patients'
Profile summary
My first career was as an NHS Nurse in London. I trained at St Mary’s Paddington, and later specialised in Renal and Urological nursing at the St Peters’ group of hospitals, Covent Garden. After studying at the RCN in London, I then spent six years as a nurse lecturer, teaching both pre and post registration students. I left the NHS in 1994 to work initially as a lay pastor in Kent and subsequently trained for ordination. I was ordained at York Minster in 1998. I served a curacy in Bridlington and was then a Church of England Vicar in Stoke-On-Trent and later in Surrey. In both roles I was privileged to support the chaplaincy service of local hospitals. I also trained as a Couple Counsellor with ‘Relate’ and enjoyed this restorative, pastoral aspect of working. I returned to the NHS three years ago, after leaving ordained ministry and re-training as a community nurse. This experience has provided the focus of my research study.
Research and knowledge exchange
This study has arisen out of my experience as a community nurse in the south of England. Part of my role involved caring for patients who were designated ‘end of life’ (EOL). This was rewarding, but also disturbing. The experience raised important questions for me, relating both to the lack of definition surrounding the term ‘end of life’ but also the way in which patient symptoms were treated using a cocktail of drugs administered sub-cutaneously via a battery-operated syringe driver.
Alongside such physical symptoms, my observation was that patients frequently struggled with anxiety/distress which was existential in nature and commonly described in relevant literature as ‘spiritual distress’. This form of distress is focused upon issues such as loss of hope, loss of meaning, regret, unresolved relational strain, fear of the future and/or fear of death.
My study therefore has four research questions:
- How does spiritual distress manifest in community based EOL patients?
- How is spiritual distress assessed in community based EOL patients?
- What interventions are used to manage or attempt to alleviate spiritual distress in EOL patients within a community setting?
- What evidence is there for the efficacy of these interventions?
Teaching and subject expertise
Biological sciences, Community Nursing, Spirituality, End of life care, Counselling, Theology.
Publications and research outputs
Whilst working as a Nurse lecturer, I edited and wrote for ‘Urological Nursing’. This was the first English urological nursing text book written solely by nurses for nurses. The book was published by Scutari press, at that time the publishing arm of the Royal College of Nursing in London. The book is now in its third edition. I contributed chapters on ‘Anatomy & Physiology of the urinary system’, ‘Urological Investigations’ and ‘Urological Cancer’. The book had 17 contributors, none of whom had published before.