NURS 750 Week 8 Discussion Board Forum 2 on the Spiritual Needs of the Caregiver Example

Discussion Board Forum 2: Who Cares for the Caregiver's Spirit?

NURS 750 Spiritual Care, Discussion Board Forum 2

Thread by [Student Name]

The unit, the deaths and the classmates replied to are composites written for a model discussion; the textbook, studies and Scripture cited are real.

Three infants died in our unit in the month of August. The third was a 25-week girl who lived eleven days, and when her parents left with an empty car seat, the bedside nurse went straight back to her next admission. That night, at the nurses' station, nobody mentioned her name. I noticed that I had not prayed for a family in weeks, that two experienced nurses had picked up extra shifts on a different unit, and that our humor had become sharper. This week's reading on the caregiver's spiritual needs named what had been happening around me: we were spiritually depleted, and we had organized our work so that no one would notice.

O'Brien (2018) treats the spiritual needs of the nurse as part of the subject of spiritual care, and the logic is plain: a caregiver who constantly pours out without being replenished will eventually have nothing left to give. That fits our unit. We are good at caring for families and poor at caring for one another. The evidence suggests this matters for patients as well as nurses. In a cross-sectional study of 135 pediatric nurses, spiritual care competence was negatively associated with moral distress and remained a significant predictor of lower distress in regression, while professional values were not (Ergezen et al., 2026). The design cannot show that spiritual competence reduces distress, but it suggests that nurses who are equipped to attend to the spiritual side of care carry its moral weight better. Wilson-Anderson et al. (2026) found the same pattern across nursing students, practicing nurses and faculty: people who described a sense of God or the sacred in ordinary days scored lower on burnout and higher on resilience and on the satisfaction that comes from caring well. A nurse who has no place to bring grief will eventually stop letting families' grief reach them.

Scripture offers a picture of a depleted servant. After his victory on Mount Carmel, Elijah fled into the wilderness, sat under a broom tree and asked God to take his life. God's first response was not correction or a sermon. An angel touched him, gave him bread and water and let him sleep, twice, before God spoke to him on the mountain (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 1 Kings 19:4-8). Rest and nourishment came before renewed purpose. Jesus Himself often withdrew to desolate places to pray (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Luke 5:16).

For our unit, I am proposing two changes to our nurse manager. First, after every death, the team involved will take a five-minute pause before returning to work, to say the infant's name and, for those who wish, to pray. Second, our chaplain will lead monthly remembrance rounds, open to all staff, to name the infants who died and the ones who are still with us. Neither is enough alone, but both say that grief belongs in the work, not after it. I also plan to ask our employee assistance program to offer a grief counselor at the unit one afternoon a month, so that nurses who need more than a pause know where to go. And I will start with myself: I have asked a colleague from church to pray with me every Sunday for the families and the staff of the unit, because a nurse practitioner who expects the team to bring grief into the open has to do it first.

Reply to Brittany

Brittany, you wrote that nurses should leave their feelings at the door to stay professional, and that grief belongs at home. I understand the instinct; we cannot fall apart in front of families. But the research suggests that grief does not wait at the door. In an integrative review of 32 studies representing more than 1,850 nurses in neonatal and pediatric intensive care in 15 countries, nurses described caring for the child after death and supporting bereaved families while managing their own grief, and they named a range of supports they needed to cope (Bloomer et al., 2025). In a qualitative study of 17 NICU nurses, nurses described an empathetic bond with the newborn and family, profound emotions at the empty incubator and lasting effects on their lives, and the authors called for debriefings, reflective sessions and flexible rest for nurses who need solitude (Kaya Meral et al., 2025). Professionalism may mean grieving in the right place rather than not grieving at all. A nurse who hides every loss may also find it harder to stay present with the next family. Does your unit have a place for that, even a small one, such as a quiet room or a standing debrief after deaths?

Reply to Andre

Andre, I liked your unit's practice of lighting a battery candle at the station after a death. Rituals like that tell nurses their grief is seen. One way to make it last is to involve the chaplain and the physicians, so it does not become one more task for nurses. In a qualitative study of compassion rounds in a NICU, spiritual care rounds focused on well-being rather than diagnoses, clinicians and parents described benefits to spiritual wellness, and the authors noted a restorative effect on caregivers and the potential to prevent burnout and restore meaning to clinicians' work (McManus & Robinson, 2022). If, as O'Brien (2018) suggests, the nurse's own spiritual life feeds the spiritual care the nurse offers, then the candle should be paired with a moment of reflection, not only lit and left. Spiritual care competence also matters here: in pediatric nurses, it was linked to lower moral distress (Ergezen et al., 2026), so a ritual that builds nurses' comfort with spiritual conversation may help twice. Has your team thought about inviting the chaplain to lead the candle moment once a month?

References

Bloomer, M. J., Brooks, L. A., Coventry, A., Ranse, K., Rowe, J., & Thomas, S. (2025). "You need to be supported": An integrative review of nurses' experiences after death in neonatal and paediatric intensive care. Australian Critical Care, 38(3), Article 101149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aucc.2024.101149

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Ergezen, Y., Dursun Ergezen, F., Kaya, A., & Efe, E. (2026). Moral distress in pediatric nurses: The influence of spiritual care competence and professional values. Journal of Pediatric Nursing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2026.09.039

Kaya Meral, D., Çalışkan, B. B., Çekiç, Y., Küçük Öztürk, G., & Bağ, B. (2025). The imprints of neonatal death: A qualitative study on neonatal intensive care nurses' experiences of neonatal death. Advances in Neonatal Care, 25(6), 565-573. https://doi.org/10.1097/ANC.0000000000001310

McManus, K., & Robinson, P. S. (2022). A thematic analysis of the effects of compassion rounds on clinicians and the families of NICU patients. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 28(1), 69-80. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2020.1745489

O'Brien, M. E. (2018). Spirituality in nursing: Standing on holy ground (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Wilson-Anderson, K., Rothacker-Peyton, S., Fifer, P., Waldo, M., & Charbonnier, K. (2026). The impact of spirituality on the professional well-being of nurses. Journal of Christian Nursing, 43(4), 210-217. https://doi.org/10.1097/CNJ.0000000000001409