Providing Spiritual Care to Patients Undergoing Open-Heart Surgery in Turkey: A Phenomenological Analysis of Nurses' Perspectives

Abstract

Open-heart surgery is a physically, psychologically, and spiritually demanding experience, making holistic nursing care essential for supporting patients' overall well-being. This study aimed to explore the spiritual care experiences of nurses providing care to patients undergoing open-heart surgery. A qualitative phenomenological design was used to capture the meaning structures underlying nurses' experiences. The study was conducted in the Cardiovascular Surgery (CVS) intensive care unit and ward of Van Training and Research Hospital. Data were collected between May and June 2025 through face-to-face, in-depth individual interviews with 10 nurses who had experience caring for patients undergoing open-heart surgery. Interviews were audio-recorded with participants' consent, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis approach with support from MAXQDA 24. The analysis revealed four main themes and 24 sub-themes reflecting the core meaning of nurses' spiritual care experiences. The main themes are: 1- The nurse's inner world and clinical reflections of spiritual care, 2- Patients' individual spiritual needs, belief systems, and perceptions of illness and death, 3- Implementation of spiritual care: the nurse's role and the texture of care, 4- Barriers and system-level constraints in providing spiritual care. Nurses reported that spiritual care enhanced patients' inner peace, coping capacity, and readiness for surgery while strengthening the therapeutic relationship. However, limited education and inadequate institutional support hindered the consistent delivery of spiritual care. The findings underscore the importance of developing culturally sensitive training programs, establishing institutional guidelines, and promoting multidisciplinary collaboration to strengthen nurses' competence and extend the integration of spiritual care into clinical practice.