Publication Date

Spring 2026

Degree Type

Doctoral Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

First Advisor

Dominique Teaford

Keywords

Spiritual care, hospice nursing, comfort theory, compassion, end-of-life care

Abstract

Spiritual care is an essential component of holistic end-of-life nursing, yet it is inconsistently provided in home hospice settings. For this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project, we developed and implemented the Compassionate Spiritual Comfort Integration Program (CSCI), a brief, theory-based educational intervention to strengthen hospice nurses' spiritual care practices. Grounded in Kolcaba's Comfort Theory and Jinpa's Compassion Framework, the CSCI was delivered as a prerecorded webinar. A quasi-experimental single–group pretest–posttest design was used to evaluate changes in spiritual care behaviors, measured with the 17-item Nurse Spiritual Care Therapeutics Scale (NSCTS) and a single-item confidence measure. Twenty-two nurses completed the baseline survey, and six also completed the postsurvey. Findings showed modest increases in spiritual care behaviors and confidence, particularly in documentation and initiating spiritual conversations. Due to the small sample size, the results were not statistically significant. Qualitative themes indicated greater awareness, intentionality, and comfort in addressing spiritual distress after the webinar. Findings suggest that the CSCI Program is a practical, low-resource intervention that may enhance hospice nurses' ability to provide spiritually responsive care. Future implementation should focus on improving engagement and follow-up survey completion.

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