About the Project
The EPICC project which is a co-funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ Programme, led by nurse and midwife educators from six universities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway and Malta.
The nursing and midwifery professions provide care for people across the lifespan trajectory in a diverse range of settings at significant times of their lives such as at birth, illness and death. Over the ages, the provision of spiritual care has been an integral feature of holistic nursing/midwifery care which embraces all dimensions of being that are physical, psychological, and spiritual (Baldacchino, 2010; Brown, 1993; Hassed, 2004; Narayanasamy, 1999a; Tiewand Creedy, 2011). Nursing/midwifery care that is truly holistic ensures that a harmonious balance between all domains, including the spiritual domain, is restored and maintained (Hassed,2004; Narayanasamy and Owens, 2001).
There is evidence to suggest that attending to the spiritual needs of patients/clients can improve their health outcomes and life experience (Koenig 2013 , 2015; RCM, Better birth report 2016), and that there may be adverse effects if spiritual care is not addressed, such as a negative experience of healthcare (Radford 2008 ). Therefore, it is imperative that nurses/midwives have the necessary skills and competence to provide care that is safe, holistic and person-centered and is delivered with respect, dignity and compassion.
Research on nurses’ perceptions and awareness of spiritual needs revealed that nurses tended to focus on religious needs with only few studies reporting nurses’ ability to identify and respond to non-religious spiritual needs (Ross, 2006; Holloway et al., 2011; Pike, 2011; Kalish, 2012). Nurses either did not respond to clients’ spiritual needs at all, responded haphazardly or involved others by referring to other professionals. The fear of getting emotionally involved with clients’ problems, caused nurses to neglect spiritual care (McSherry, 2006) as nurses perceived spiritual care as an ‘added extra’ rather than an integral part of care (Clarke, 2013).
Collectively, the ambiguities in spiritual care education lie in the little evidence to guide academics on how spiritual care education should be addressed in undergraduate nursing programmes (Gordon and Mitchell, 2004; Taylor et al., 2009) which most likely led to a lack of confidence in teaching spiritual care (McEwen, 2005) and resulted in a proportion of higher education providers not including spiritual care in their undergraduate nursing programmes.
Recognising the need to address spiritual care in undergraduate nursing programmes, several higher education providers have integrated it into their curricula. Yet little research has been done to investigate the impact these programmes have on preparing undergraduate nursing students to provide spiritual care (Baldacchino, 2008; Lovanio and Wallace, 2007; van Leeuwen, et al., 2008).
Thus, the primary aims of the project are to:
- establish a sustainable network and partnerships where nursing/midwifery educators can share experiences and resources related to spiritual care, to inform their teaching and learning
- enable nursing/midwifery educators to acquire new knowledge/skills in the learning and teaching of personal, religious and spiritual aspects of person-centred care
- review how personal, religious and spiritual aspects of care are currently addressed in a sample of HEI’s from across Europe
- analyse current practice identifying factors and processes that enable or inhibit the teaching of these areas in nursing/midwifery curricula
- develop and test an innovative, dynamic and flexible Spiritual care Matrix for nurse/midwife education based upon international best practice and evidence which can be adopted by Higher Education Institutions (HEI) across Europe
- identify strategies and develop resources to inform professional regulatory bodies and key stakeholders.
This project has the potential to generate a rich insight into current educational practice, enable the sharing of best practice and the development of a uniform approach to how holistic, personal, religious and spiritual beliefs are incorporated into nursing/midwifery curricula through the generation of guidance. This will ensure the nursing and midwifery workforce of the future is prepared to deliver the compassionate care we all expect to receive as clients/patients.
Following the development of the Educational Matrix and tool kit for Spiritual Care by the project partners and participants from 19 European countries, comprising: Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Lithuania and the United Kingdom, the next step of the journey is for the matrix to be tested and implemented. This is currently in progress within the EPICC Partners and EPICC participants own institutions. Findings and experiences from this phase of the project will be reported in a 5-day Teaching and learning event in Malta in 24-28 September, 2018 at the University of Malta conference centre Valletta.
Wednesday 26 September 2018 the EPICC Teaching and Learning event at the University of Malta Conference Centre Valletta, is open to the local Spiritual /Religious leaders of the various denominations, Nurses, Midwives, Students, Educators, Curriculum Developers Regulatory Bodies and Health Service Users.