SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH INTERNATIONAL

9: 230–240 (2008)
Published online 22 July 2008 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/shi.353

Rehabilitation nurses’
experiences providing
spiritual care
Mary Catherine Gebhardt

Abstract
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine rehabilitation nurses’
experiences providing spiritual care. Rehabilitation nurses provide care for patients and
their families after life-threatening events and are in a unique position to meet holistic
health care needs. Little is written about rehabilitation nurses’ perceptions of providing
spiritual care. Fourteen rehabilitation nurses self-identified as providing spiritual care
and agreed to participate in individual interviews. The interviews focused on the
nurses’ definition of spiritual care, interventions the nurses perceived as spiritual and
their comfort in providing spiritual care. More studies are needed to determine if
providing spiritual care improves patient outcomes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.

Key words: spiritual care, rehabilitation nursing, holistic care, phenomenological research

Introduction orthopaedic injuries. Few studies in the

Spiritual care and promotion of health are
important aspects of nursing care and have
been since Florence Nightingale’s time
(Burkhardt and Nagai-Jacobson, 2002). Nearly
100 years ago, the founder of present-day
nursing addressed the idea that spirituality
and health are connected and that nurses are
the primary promoters of health.
Rehabilitation nurses provide care for patients
following catastrophic injuries such as spinal
cord injuries, brain injuries and severe
literature describe how rehabilitation
nurses define or provide spiritual care.
Rehabilitation nurses are in a unique position
to provide spiritual care and promote health
because of patients’ extended stay in the
rehabilitation unit. Patients and their families
often rely on the nurses to meet holistic
health care needs, and spiritual care is
included in these needs.
Rehabilitation nurses attending a
national conference participated in this
phenomenological study. These 14 nurses

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 9: 230–240 (2008)

10.1002/shi

self-identified as providing spiritual care
participated in individual interviews on the
topic of spiritual care. This paper presents the
essences of the interviews and proposes
suggestions for future studies.
Background
Defining spirituality is difficult, and many
times the definition of spirituality is confused
with religiosity. The assumption that one can
define spirituality presumes that one can
associate words to the spiritual experience.
Regardless of the difficulty defining
spirituality, many definitions exist. One useful
definition of spirituality is connectedness
within one’s self and others (Reed, 1992;
Sherwood, 2000). Other authors describe
spirituality as giving meaning and purpose
(Clark et al., 1991; Fitchett, 1995; Sherwood,
2000; Legere, 2003). Zinnbauer et al. (1999)
note that there is not a single definition for
the word spiritual and that existing
definitions differ considerably.
In attempting to differentiate spirituality
and religiosity, Zinnbauer et al. (1997) found
that the terms describe different concepts.
Religiosity was associated with formalities,
rituals and rules, while spirituality was better
described as relationships with self and
others, purpose and inner dimension. Taylor
(2002) interviewed nurses who suggested that
spirituality may or may not have a religious
component.
Pastoral care literature notes the
importance of medical professionals
considering spiritual care needs of patients
(Leech, 1989; Cassidy, 1994; Willows and
Swinton, 2000). Dyson (1983) suggests that
pastoral theology and other disciplines need
to develop a ‘reciprocal’ arrangements in
order to meet the spiritual needs of
individuals.
Florence Nightingale, the founder of
nursing, identified the importance of a strong
spiritual base when caring for the needs of
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rehabilitation nurses describe spiritual care 231
patients (Burkhardt and Nagai-Jacobson,
2002). Nursing theorists have identified the
need to consider aspects of spirituality when
caring for patients (Watson, 1999; Leininger,
2002). Nurses in specialty areas other than
rehabilitation nursing have identified the
importance of providing spiritual care
(O’Brien, 2000; Greasley et al., 2001; Tuck
et al., 2001; Hoover, 2002; Strang et al., 2002;
Mc Sherry, 2006; van Leeuwen et al., 2006)
and patients and their families have identified
the need for spiritual care (McColl et al.,
2000; Sheldon, 2000; Boswell et al., 2001;
Hermann, 2001; Chapman and Grossoehme,
2002; Kloosterhouse and Ames, 2002; Ferrell
et al., 2003; Taylor, 2003; Theis et al., 2003;
Tanyi et al., 2006). In these studies, patients
described spiritual care as the nurses being
kind and respectful, talking and listening to
them, praying with them, connecting with
them and their family, providing quality care
and assisting them in obtaining religious
resources.
There have been a number of studies
about psychiatric community health nurses
providing spiritual care (O’Brien, 2000;
Greasley et al., 2001; Tuck et al., 2001). Most
of these studies suggest that, in order to
provide spiritual care, a relationship between
the nurse and the care recipient must develop.
Despite the fact that extended contact between
rehabilitation nurses and their clients allows
them to develop in-depth relationships, the
author of this paper found no study
describing how rehabilitation nurses provide
spiritual care.
Therefore, this study describes
rehabilitation nurses’ perspectives about how
they cared for the spiritual needs of their
patients, and examines the lived experiences
of rehabilitation nurses when providing
spiritual care.
The research questions were as follows:
1. How do rehabilitation nurses define spiritual
care?
9: 230–240 (2008)
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232 Mary Catherine Gebhardt
2. How do rehabilitation nurses describe their
experiences providing spiritual care?
3. How do rehabilitation nurses describe
their level of comfort in providing spiritual
care?
Methods
The researcher used a Heideggerian
phenomenological approach to obtain stories
from rehabilitation nurses about providing
spiritual care. Heideggerian
phenomenological research focuses on the
meaning of the phenomenon for the person
experiencing it, recognizing that the
researcher’s interest in the topic cannot be
separated from the data and will have an
impact on the data as they are collected and
analysed (Koch, 1995). This research
approach also refers to ‘being there’, which
emphasizes the ‘situatedness’ of human
reality (Reed, 1994). Nurses find the aspect
of ‘being in the world’ an important
component of nursing care, and this concept
makes Heideggerian phenomenology a
particularly useful methodology for this
study.
Using this approach, the author asked
nurses how they provided and defined
spiritual care and how they differentiated
spirituality from religiosity. Additionally, the
nurses were asked to describe acts they
performed that they viewed as spiritual. The
researcher used the Heideggerian
phenomenological framework when
conducting this study because it provided a
guide for the research questions and assisted
in guiding the analysis of the data. Following
this methodological framework, the
researcher and the nurses co-constructed this
research. The Institutional Review Board at
both the institution of education and
employment of the researcher approved this
study and all associated consent forms.
Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed
verbatim for accuracy.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Recruitment
Fourteen rehabilitation nurses currently
working in a rehabilitation setting
participated in the study. The nurses were
recruited during the Association of
Rehabilitation Nurses 30th Annual Educational
Conference held in Atlanta, GA, in 2004.
They responded to a flyer posted at the
registration desk asking for participants who
provided spiritual care to participate in a
study. The nurses received a $20 gift
certificate from a bookstore for participating
in the study.
Participants
All of the participants were female. Their
ages ranged from 35 to 73 years, and they
had been practising nursing for 9 to 55 years.
Eight had associate degrees as their basic
level of nursing education, and six of these
had continued their education and received
baccalaureate degrees in nursing. Six nurses
had baccalaureate degrees in nursing as their
entry-level education. All but one of the
nurses had advanced certification in
rehabilitation nursing. Thirteen were
Caucasian, and one identified herself as a
Black Haitian. The nurses were from various
areas of the United States and one nurse
worked in Canada. Thirteen identified the
primary age of their clients as adults, but
one cared mainly for paediatric clients. All
identified religious affiliations including
Catholic, Christian, Seventh Day Adventist,
Methodist, Assembly of God, Baptist and
Non-Denominational. The author replaced
the nurses’ actual names with pseudonyms
during transcription to maintain
confidentiality.
Procedure
The researcher explained the study to each
participant and obtained written informed
consent. Using a semi-structured interview
guide, the researcher interviewed each nurse
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in a private setting conducive to audiotaping
the interview. The interviews were
audiotaped and transcribed for accuracy. Each
interview lasted approximately 1 hour. The
researcher asked the nurses to define
spirituality and spiritual care. Additionally,
the researcher asked the nurses to discuss the
differences between spiritual and religious
care, and asked each nurse how she learned
to care for patients spiritually. Following a
phenomenological approach, the researcher
asked the nurses to share as many
experiences as they felt comfortable sharing
about the times they provided spiritual care.
After the interview, the nurses were asked to
tell colleagues about the study if they
thought they would be interested in
participating. The researcher obtained contact
information in order to send a summary of
the essences found in the interviews to the
participants to validate the findings. This
form of participant validation assured that
the findings were present in the responses of
the nurses.
Analysis
The author conducted, coded and transcribed
all the interviews. After the 12th interview,
no new codes emerged from the data;
however, the researcher coded two additional
interviews to assure saturation. After
saturation was attained, all interviews were
recoded to verify whether codes identified in
later interviews were actually present in prior
interviews. This process of coding forward
and backward continued until no new codes
were identified;, thus, saturation was verified.
This ‘circular’ method of data analysis allows
moving back and forth between the
individual coded interviews and the whole
(Speziale and Carpenter, 2003). An expert
qualitative researcher reviewed and verified
the codes. In addition to tape recording, the
researcher wrote field notes during each
interview to improve the accuracy of the
transcription.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rehabilitation nurses describe spiritual care 233
Methods to increase trustworthiness
In order to increase trustworthiness of results,
the researcher used several strategies. The
author conducted and transcribed all
interviews, thus becoming very familiar with
the life experiences these nurses shared. The
interviewer also coded all the interviews;
therefore, the meanings of the codes and sub-
codes were not subject to various
interpretations. However, because another
researcher verified the codes, trustworthiness
of results was assured. This prolonged
engagement with the data was one method of
ensuring validity. Using the ‘circular’ method
of data analysis, the researcher identified
patterns in the experiences of the nurses.
Finally, clustering similar codes and
describing the true meanings that gave
common understanding, or essences, allowed
discovery of similar essences across all
experiences. The researcher compared the
essences identified in the interviews to
determine if similarities were present and
then wrote a description of the essences to
describe the phenomenon.
Member checking was conducted by
sending participants the interpretations of the
themes identified from the data after coding
to verify that they agreed with the findings.
The letter instructed the nurses to contact the
researcher within two weeks if the codes
identified did not reflect their experiences.
Only two nurses responded to the letter, and
these responses affirmed the findings.
Results
As the nurses defined spiritual care, three
essences emerged: being respectful, being
supportive and building a relationship with
patients and their families. When the nurses
described their experiences providing
spiritual care, three essences became
apparent: little things, bonuses and being
used by a higher power. Finally, as the nurses
described how they became comfortable
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234 Mary Catherine Gebhardt
providing spiritual care, two essences
materialized: repetition and the nurse’s own
sense of spirituality.
Defining spiritual care
In order to answer the first research question,
the researcher asked the nurses to define
spiritual care. Whatever the nurse described
as spiritual care was considered her definition
of spiritual care in her practice. Therefore, a
definition of spiritual care emerged for these
rehabilitation nurses. The nurses’ perception
of spiritual care may differ from the patients’
perception of spiritual care; however, because
the interest was the lived experiences of the
nurses, their definition of spiritual care was
sought. These rehabilitation nurses mentioned
three ideas defining spiritual care: respect,
support and building a relationship.
Respect
Even though the researcher specifically asked
the nurses to define spiritual care, some of
the nurses defined spiritual care in terms of
respecting the ‘religious’ practices of patients.
Spiritual care meant the nurses respected
these thoughts and beliefs. Jan noted:
I can remember having patients, who, three
times a day you didn’t go in their room,
because they had to be praying facing, I
can’t remember which direction, but
whatever direction it was, they had to
pray . . . and you had to respect that.
Support
The nurses defined spiritual care as being
supportive. Ann described the following
experience with a particular patient’s family:
‘I understand that whatever they’re doing is right for them
at that time, for that family member. [I am] trying to be
supportive to them’. Another nurse spoke about
supporting the patients and their families’
wishes when the current practices of the
hospital differed. She was willing to help the
patient and family carry out their wishes.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Providing spiritual care in this instance placed
her in the difficult position of being in
conflict with the institutional practices.
She [the patient] didn’t want to eat. She
wanted to die. She was ready to go. Her
family was OK with all of that, and I
remember having the biggest row with my
head nurse because she kept saying, ‘You
have to feed her’. And I said, ‘I’m not going
to feed her. You have got to realize that she
is at a place in her life where she’s making a
decision about what she wants to do, and
you’re not gonna make her do what you
want. She’s got the right to finish her life the
way she really, really wants to’.
Building a relationship
The third definition of spiritual care that
emerged from the interviews was making a
connection or building a relationship. All of
the nurses thought spiritual care involved
developing relationships with patient and
their families. Ann said that spiritual care
meant making the patient ‘know that there is
a link between themselves and someone in
the world at that moment’. Lynn talked about
making a connection with a patient who had
actually been an acquaintance of her father
many years ago. She knew her father had
helped a man and his family but did not
know much about the relationship. Through
her conversation with the man, she developed
a special connection. Lynn recounted the
experience:
And he [the patient] looked up at me and he
said, ‘Oh, I’ve seen those eyes before’. And I
just looked at him, and I said, ‘Where did
you see these eyes at?’ And he said, ‘The
kindest man I ever met, years ago. And he
helped me and he helped my family at a time
when no one else would’. And I knew right
then who I was talking to.
In Lynn’s recounting of this story, she
thought the connection she felt with this man
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allowed her to care spiritually for him during
his rehabilitation stay.
Another nurse spoke about building a
relationship with patients and their families.
Her first experience was with the family of a
patient who had experienced a severe stroke.
She then narrated how she developed and
nurtured this relationship:
And, then I explained again, that I
understood how they were feeling about the
role changes. I guess he had always been the
strong one. And, his wife didn’t even drive,
he drove her everywhere. Everything was
turned around and backwards. I spent every
day with them.
Caring spiritually
All 14 nurses interviewed were able to answer
the second research question and describe the
times when they cared spiritually for patients.
As they shared their stories and examples of
spiritual care, three essences emerged: ‘little
things’, ‘bonuses’ and ‘being used’.
Little things
First, spiritual care meant little things such as
communicating with patients, spending time
with patients and their families or performing
daily tasks such as giving baths or changing
bandages. These nurses thought they were
spiritual because of the underlying motivation
they had while performing the task. Granted,
the participants noted that many nurses
perform these same tasks, but not all nurses
view these tasks as spiritual. However, the
nurses felt that, for them, these simple
nursing tasks were spiritual. The nurses
performed ‘little things’ for patients in order
to attempt to meet their needs, including
spiritual needs. Ann told a story about caring
for a patient whose daughter had died in the
automobile accident that brought her to the
rehabilitation unit. The patient was going to
miss her daughter’s funeral.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rehabilitation nurses describe spiritual care 235
So I went in and the first thing I did was I
touched her hand . . . I just asked her about
her daughter because I figured she probably
wanted to talk about it with someone. There
was no one else in the room with her and she
started to cry. And just holding her hand
through that time and trying to be a person
that could listen to her needs at that time, I
think, was what she needed right then.
The nurses also spoke about providing
spiritual care in everyday care-giving
experiences. Deb stated, ‘I think it is very
important that it’s part of your everyday activities’. Nan
was more explicit. She noted:
But you can give a bath and be spiritual. I
remember one time, it was father’s day, and I
had just had my first pedicure, and I thought,
this feels great, I never had anybody
massage my feet, and I thought, I’m going to
give all my fathers a foot massage on
father’s day . . . So that was spiritual,
because I wanted them to feel as good as I
did.
Spiritual care also included other little
things such as calling spiritual leaders, pastors
or ministers. Barb commented, ‘And she also
asked that I call the bishop that she loved very much from
this Methodist Church. And so I did’. Gail spoke
about making the connection between a
patient requesting spiritual guidance and the
hospital chaplain. She said, ‘We have a priest, the
chaplain, who comes and makes rounds and I make sure
that they connect’.
Bonuses
The nurses described the experience of
providing spiritual care as a situation in
which they received more than they provided.
It seemed as though it was a ‘bonus’:
something unexpected or unearned. While
providing spiritual care for patients, the nurse
actually gained more than she felt she gave to
the patients. Helen noted, ‘I’m thinking she gave
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236 Mary Catherine Gebhardt
me the spiritual lift’. Later in the interview, she
said, ‘The more spirituality you give out, it comes right
back to you’. Katy thought this aspect of
spiritual care might be a reason people go
into nursing. ‘As nurses, that’s why we go into
nursing. We want to help others, but we don’t see that in
turn by helping them, they’re helping us too. That’s part
of spirituality’.
Being used
Some of the nurses felt a higher power
intervened and used them while providing
spiritual care. Sometimes their actions seemed
guided and the words they used seemed
inspired. The advice they gave seemed to
come from another source. Ora said, ‘You know,
I had to figure it’s got to be the grace of God that puts me
in those places. That’s where I’m needed’. Emma said
there were times when the families
mentioned they thought her words were
inspired. She stated that patients and their
families had told her, ‘Thank you so much for that,
I think what you told me was from God’. Emma
described the phenomenon this way: ‘I believe
God uses me. I’m His servant and He uses me to serve
others, through nursing’.
Developing a sense of comfort
Two essences emerged as the nurses answered
the third research question and described
how they developed comfort in providing
spiritual care: repetition and relying on their
own sense of spirituality.
Repetition
The nurses said repetition in providing
spiritual care helped them become more
comfortable. The more often they provided
spiritual care, the more comfortable they
became. Jan described how she became
comfortable providing spiritual care. She
stated, ‘Repetition’. She went on to say, ‘It gets
easier the more you do it’.
The nurses also said that the extended
amount of time they experienced with
patients in a rehabilitation unit was an asset
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
and allowed them to build relationships. This
extended time allowed the nurses to develop
a sense of comfort providing spiritual care.
When these relationships were present, the
nurses reported more comfort providing
spiritual care. Barb talked about providing
spiritual care to an amputee she cared for: ‘I
walked in one morning, and we began talking. A
friendship or a kinship developed because I had seen her so
often’. Fran thought the ‘connection and the
relationship that you form with your patients
and families’ facilitates a sense of comfort in
providing care. Fran noted that rehabilitation
nursing was ‘different because you have more
time’.
Personal sense of spirituality
Finally, these nurses thought they had an
increased comfort in providing spiritual care
when they had a stronger sense of their own
spirituality. Cindy saw a connection between
‘caring spiritually and being comfortable in
what you’re doing on a daily basis’. She noted
that she provided spiritual care on a daily
basis because she was ‘very spiritual’. Mimi
described her comfort in caring spiritually
this way: ‘I try to bring some form of spiritually into
my practice on a daily basis with whomever I’m working
with; [it] has to do with my own intrinsic spiritual
beliefs’.
Summary
The nurses defined spiritual nursing as being
‘respectful’, ‘being supportive’ and ‘building a
relationship’. They realized that they needed
to be open to whatever beliefs the patients
and their families practised and they
described this as respect. By respecting
patients and their families, every other aspect
of caring became spiritual for these nurses.
Spiritual care was evident in the ‘little things’
the nurses did every day, in a task as simple
as communicating with patients or spending
time with them and their families, or as
commonplace as giving baths or changing
dressings. Spiritual care also included calling
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spiritual leaders such as pastors or ministers
and praying with and for the patients, their
families and peers. The nurses described the
experience of providing spiritual care as a
situation in which they received more than
they provided. The nurses said this was a type
of ‘bonus’ because it was not something they
had expected. Some of the nurses felt they
were ‘being used’ by a higher power while
providing spiritual care. The nurses developed
comfort in providing spiritual care by
‘repetition’, and ‘relying on their own
personal sense of spirituality’. They thought
rehabilitation nursing offered them unique
opportunities to develop this comfort.
Rehabilitation nursing made it easier because
patients spent an extended amount of time on
the rehabilitation unit and relationships
formed. These nurses also felt that a strong
sense of personal spirituality allowed them to
nurse more spiritually.
Discussion
Nurses were able to offer a definition of
spiritual nursing care; however, many times,
the nurses described spirituality in terms of
activities they performed. The difficulty in
defining spiritual care rather than defining it
by describing actions of spiritual care is
similar to the argument by English et al.
(2003) that the difficulty encountered when
defining spirituality assumes that spirituality
can be described by using words that would
capture its meaning and discuss its essence.
The nurses defined spirituality as ‘respect’,
which was similar to expectations of spiritual
care the cancer patients and caregivers Taylor
(2003) interviewed. These rehabilitation
nurses also defined spiritual care as
‘supporting’ patients and caregivers. The
psychiatric nurses O’Brien (2000) interviewed
included this aspect of support when they
defined the nature of spiritual care. Finally,
the nurses interviewed thought spirituality
included a sense of ‘connectedness’, which the
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rehabilitation nurses describe spiritual care 237
various specialty nurses interviewed by
Wilson (2007) also expressed.
The nurses gave examples of providing
spiritual care. These acts were often very
simple nursing acts, but the nurses felt they
were spiritual because of the attitude the
nurse had when performing them. While
other professions have viewed simple acts
such as silence and listening as spiritual in
nature (Leech, 1989) and nursing theorists
have identified these acts as provision of
spiritual care (Ronaldson, 1997; Watson,
1999) nursing research studies have not
identified these simple acts as aspects of
providing spiritual care. The rehabilitation
nurses interviewed felt that other nurses who
do not self-identify as providing spiritual care
may perform similar acts and not view them
as spiritual. For this reason, these experiences
were the perceptions of the particular nurses
interviewed and cannot be generalized. Thus,
for some nurses, there is an intersection of
personal values and professional
responsibilities. Nurses in the rehabilitation
setting may find opportunities to provide
spiritual care for families in crises. For some
families, spiritual care may be important in
coping with and understanding the events
that have occurred. Therefore, more research
needs to be conducted that would look into
this connection between spiritual care and
coping.
The nurses felt that when they performed
spiritual care, they often received a
complementary benefit or ‘bonus’, from
providing care. Even though the nurses
intended spiritual care to benefit the patient,
the nurses felt they also benefited from the
experience. They also talked about ‘being
used’ by a higher power during the provision
of spiritual care. They often did not know
what to say or do in a particular situation but
were inspired once in the situation. There
were even instances when patients and their
families mentioned they thought the words of
the nurse were coming from God. These two
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238 Mary Catherine Gebhardt
essences have not been identified in previous
nursing studies; however, they were noted in
Cassidy’s (1994) recounting of her work as a
hospice physician and Leech’s (1989) work as
a spiritual director. Further research might be
able to determine whether this nursing
experience is unique to rehabilitation nurses
or whether other nurses providing spiritual
care have similar experiences.
When exploring how to become
comfortable providing spiritual care, the
nurses described providing spiritual care
repeatedly, and they often provided care
based on cues they received from their
patients. The nurses mentioned that their own
personal sense of spirituality guided them in
providing spiritual care. This phenomenon is
similar to recent nursing studies (van
Leeuwan et al., 2006; Wilson, 2007; Yang and
Mao, 2007) that identified nurses’ own sense
of spirituality and pastoral care literature
(Bloomfield, 1978; Cassidy, 1994) which
notes that caregivers’ sense of spirituality
often influences their attitudes regarding
providing spiritual care for patients.
Conclusion
Rehabilitation nurses interviewed for this
study provided spiritual care and were able to
define it. They noted that many spiritual
interventions were very basic nursing
activities. The nurses thought that
rehabilitation nursing afforded them
opportunities, such as extended time with the
patients and their families, which other
nursing specialties may not have.
The researcher specifically designed this
study to understand the perception of
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Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
spiritual care from rehabilitation nurses who
provide it. The nurses knew they would be
asked about times they provided spiritual care
for patients. Future studies need to be
designed to understand the perceptions of
nurses who provide similar care but do not
view it as spiritual. Understanding how these
nurses view spiritual care differently may be
beneficial. In addition, quantitative studies are
needed to understand the prevalence of
spiritual care giving experiences among
nurses and how this care may contribute to
patient recovery.
The experiences of these nurses may help
other nurses realize the importance of
spiritual care when caring for patients. Other
nurses will recognize how they can meet
patients’ spiritual needs during very ordinary
acts of nursing care.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported in part by a
research grant from the Epsilon Alpha chapter
of Sigma Theta Tau. Additional assistance was
provided by P. C. Clark, PhD, RN, FAHA,
FAAN and P. Orpinas, PhD.
Mary Catherine Gebhardt, PhD, RN,
CRRN
Assistant Professor, Byrdine F. Lewis
School of Nursing
Georgia State University
PO Box 4019
Atlanta, GA 30302-4019
Tel: 404-413-1161. Fax: 404-413-1205.
Email: mgebhardt@gsu.edu
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 Rehabilitation nurses describe spiritual care 239

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