Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Family caregivers play a vital role during the time of illness of a family member. While caring for a dying family member in a hospice setting, family caregivers experience multiple transitions, make new resolutions, adjust to changing roles and expectations, and experience grief and other complex caregiving situations where their search for meaning becomes evident. The study aimed to describe the experiences of spirituality among family caregivers caring for a dying family member in a hospice setting. The study used interpretive description, a qualitative approach to guide the study. Individual in-depth interviews and follow up interviews were conducted among18 family caregivers. Ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Board of the University of Alberta. Findings revealed that spirituality was a major coping resource for family caregivers. Family caregivers uncovered meaningful engagement, sense of belonging, and a sense of attachment while serving their dying family member. They highly valued the love, respect, and honour of the family, showed compassion, believed in God's blessings and grace and experienced constant spiritual growth and self-transcendence. For most participants, all these spiritual experiences and spiritual values helped them to cope with their uncertainties, grief and loss, and sufferings faced while caregiving actions and practices in a hospice setting. Some family caregivers expressed spiritual distress and therefore needed additional spiritual support and care. The study findings inform healthcare professionals to acknowledge and integrate spirituality as an important dimension of palliative care and develop supportive care interventions to enhance family caregivers' spirituality, prevent spiritual distress and promote spiritual wellbeing at the end of life in the hospice setting.