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Aim(s): To replicate a study conducted twenty years ago regarding difficulties associated with spiritual care at an oncology clinic. Compare the results against societal changes, educational changes and changes at the clinic.

Design: Mixed-method, longitudinal, descriptive and comparative design.

Methods: A questionnaire-based replication-study conducted in 2003 and 2023 with comparative and categorical content analyses. The questionnaire was handed out to all nursing staff at duty at the investigate oncology clinic during the data collection periods.

Results: The difficulties associated with spiritual care in 2003 and 2023 are very similar and include (i) a lack of knowledge and education; (ii) the nurses' own approaches to spiritual care can be perceived as having a negative impact, and (iii) practical or structural difficulties, including a lack of time, experiences of stress, a lack of suitable locations for individual conversations.

Conclusion: The difficulties identified in the 2023 study mirror previous research to a high degree. These difficulties have not, in any substantial way, changed between 2003 and 2023. This conclusion indicates that difficulties associated with spiritual care might not be sensitive to societal changes regarding spirituallity, organisational changes at the clinic, or educational changes regarding the nurses' formal education in spirituality and healthcare.

Implications for the profession and/or patient care: This study is informative with regard to identifying actions that can obviate difficulties associated with spiritual care.

Reporting method: When applicable: SRQR.

Patient or public contribution: None

The aim of this research is to illuminate (a) how religiosity can be manifest in a coping process associated with parenting a child with Down syndrome and (b) the complexity of this coping process in terms of the interdependence of identity, context, religion and coping. Following methods previously used in qualitative psychology of religious studies on religious people coping with cancer, religiosity is mapped out regarding how it is, and has been, manifest during the life before and after becoming a parent to a child with Down syndrome. An in-depth analysis is conducted on how the various manifestations of religiosity play out, and intervene with identity and context, in the process of coping with various challenges associated with parenting a child with Down syndrome. The results show experiences of personal growth regarding identity as well as experiences of spiritual growth. The most dominant religious manifestation associated to the analysed coping processes is the faith community’s various roles. The results are compared with methodologically, and conceptually, similar studies. In comparison with studies on religious people coping with cancer, the role of the faith community is much more dominant in the presented case. It is argued that this might have to do with the differences in nature between stressors associated with the own health/survival and parenting a child with Down syndrome, and it is suggested that the nature of stressors might play an important role when understanding the varieties of religious manifestations in religious coping.

The purpose of this article is to examine the value of an interdisciplinary approach to dealing with ecclesiological issues of a relational nature and to contribute to the ecclesiological understanding of the church as a mystical communion. By applying role-theoretical, ecclesiological, and liturgical-theological perspectives to three fictional pastoral cases, the study shows that the methodological approach and the ecclesiological dimension (horizontal or vertical) considered are of crucial importance to how relational events of a pastoral nature can be interpreted and understood. The study demonstrates the productivity of bringing together theoretical perspectives from behavioural science and theology and shows that an awareness of the two ecclesiological dimensions (horizontal and vertical) can strengthen the conditions for keeping them together. According to the study, the understanding of the church as “a body” is crucial – not only the social body but also, and especially, the mystical body. In a mystical theological sense, it is in the juxtaposition between the horizontal and the vertical that “healing” occurs and “koinonia” takes place.

Aim(s): To explore the understandings of spiritual care among nursing staff at an Swedish oncology clinic, with a special focus on changes over time.

Design: Qualitative, longitudinal, descriptive design.

Methods: A questionnaire-based replication study conducted in 2003 (N = 68) and 2023 (N = 47), comparative and thematic analysis.

Results: The thematic analysis generated four main themes in 2023: (i) Relate to the whole person—spiritual care as an approach, (ii) enable an atmosphere of humanity and security around the patient—spiritual care as a nursing intervention, (iii) enable the patient to live out their spirituality or practice their religion—spiritual care that focuses on practical aspects directly linked to practising a religion and (iv) awareness of the importance of one's own approach to spiritual care—spiritual care that focuses on the personal qualities of the caregiver. Compared with 2003, there are many similarities but also some differences: the importance of one's own approach is more emphasised in 2023, and there is an increased awareness that nursing interventions can be different depending on who the patient is and who the caregiver is; spiritual care is more clearly characterised by an effort to relate to the whole person and the understanding of what can/should be included in the framework of spiritual care is broader.

Conclusion: The concept of ‘spiritual care’ can change over time and can depend on societal changes.

Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care: When studying understandings of the concept of ‘spiritual care’ in a nursing context or evaluating studies on the topic, the stability of the concept of ‘spiritual care’ over time should be accounted for.

Reporting Method: When applicable: SRQR.

Patient or Public Contribution: None.

The chapter provides examples of how religiosity informs perceptions of health care interventions among Swedish practising Christians living with cancer. These examples are based on a brief account for earlier research on sanctification of health care interventions as a coping method (sanctification is here understood as the process through which aspects of life come to be perceived as having a divine character and/or significance). Based on these examples, a discussion is offered on (1) how religiously informed perceptions of health care interventions can be understood and explained within a framework or religious literacy; (2) why religion matters in a health care context; and (3) that religious literacy could usefully include knowledge of functions of religiosity in coping.

Considering the case of a Swedish university course called Theology of Medicine and Nursing, the essay describes how to establish new and relevant arenas for practical theology by teaching theology in non-traditional theological contexts. Such endeavor requires passion, context and interdisciplinarity, in which the designer and teacher of the course “theology of X,” where X is the context in question, is passionate about theology and X. It is suggested that the teacher has personal experiences of X as well as being a trained theologian (interdisciplinarity) and to design the course so it attracts both theologians and people from the context of X. This creates a dynamic mix in the course of academic (conventional) theology students and students passionate about X that the essay argues is pedagogically important when trying to stimulate to theological reflexions on X.

This study addresses the Bible as a coping tool in a sample of Swedish practising Christians living with cancer, gathered through a qualitative, in-depth interview study, on religious experiences and expressions that serve in the process of coping with a life situation changed by the disease. Through content analyses, and case studies combining tools from Pargament’s coping theory with, above all, role theory, it is shown that the Bible is a part of the coping process for approximately half of the informants. Furthermore, the Bible plays very different roles in the coping process, even for one single person. In the analyzed material, two different ways of using the Bible in the coping process occurs: Biblical passages as bearer of meaning for the informants, and the actual reading as such of the Bible. The former with two different functions in the coping process: (a) in the Biblical passages, see a direct appeal from God to the individual on a personal level and (b) a specific character in a Bible passage serves as an object of identification for the informant. In the coping process, the Bible provides coping tools for the identified coping methods meditative reading, role taking, and (re)interpretation of biblical passages (motivated by a religious tradition). As such, it mainly serves within the framework of the preserving comprehensive coping method. It is also shown that there are changes in the use of the Bible in connection with the changed life situation, as a result of the disease.