Workplace spirituality in health care: an integrated review of the literature

Aim: The aim is to describe workplace spirituality as a concept and phenomenon in health care and to explore the points of view from which it has been studied in nursing.

Background: Personnel in nursing are ageing and recruitment is challenging; workplace spirituality might benefit both employees and organisations. Workplace spirituality has three levels - individual, group and organisational - and presents different components at each level.

Evaluation: An integrated literature search identified 632 studies; after screening for relevance and quality, we identified eight peer-reviewed articles. The data were analysed with qualitative content analysis.

Key issues: Workplace spirituality in nursing is mostly defined and researched from the individual viewpoint. The definition includes dimensions of inner life, meaningful work, interconnectedness, transcendence and alignment between values.

Conclusion: A sense of community and meaningful work are the most important dimensions of workplace spirituality in health care. Group and organisational levels of workplace spirituality are the most important and still the least studied. Research is concentrated in Canada and Asia; more research in Europe is needed.

Implications for nursing management: Nurse managers can enhance workplace spirituality by contributing to organisational culture and emphasising teamwork. This requires more education and training in workplace spirituality.