Las necesidades espirituales como elementos del bienestar en el paciente paliativo.

Abstract

From the beginning of the Hospice movement, one of the basis of Palliative Care, the spiritual dimension has been a central goal of care. Nevertheless, due to the intimate and subjective nature of this dimension as well as the lack of consensus on its characteristics, it has been, until recently, the less developed area of Palliative Care. People, as spiritual beings, have spiritual needs. These needs are inherent to the human being, emerge from inside the person and are manifested in every culture. However, neglecting the spiritual needs influences the welfare of the patient. This thesis addresses the issue of the spiritual needs of inpatients whereas are attended by a team of Palliative Care. Based on this, chapters 1 and 2 try to contextualize the thesis, focusing on the field of Palliative Care and spirituality at the end of life. In chapter 3, there is a description of the approach and objectives of the two conducted studies. In the first study (chapter 4), we analyze the spiritual dimension of patients based on the comments with spiritual content that they spontaneously verbalize. We designed the second study (chapter 5) to directly evaluate the spiritual needs of patients by relating them with their well-being. Finally, in Chapter 6, we expose a general discussion of the results of both studies that will be the basis for drawing up the final conclusions of this research. These conclusions are shown in Chapter 7. As a result, it can be concluded that the model of spirituality used in this research is suitable for assessing spiritual needs at the end of life and that when some needs are unmet, patients can undergo suffering. The value of this research lies in how it evaluates the spiritual dimension of palliative patients through their spiritual needs and welfare concerns. This thesis tries to help in reducing the complexity of the spiritual dimension to more specific aspects in order to facilitate its evaluation.

Date of Award	13 Apr 2015
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Tomas Blasco Blasco (Director)