Health Ministry Faith Community Nursing Bibliography and Resources
This information is to support the specialized area of professional nursing practice that focuses on health promotion within a faith community, traditionally called "parish nursing". It highlights bibliographic information and resources that support parish nursing/health ministry or would be useful to nurses practicing within faith communities. A link to the Texas Health Ministries Network website is also included.
External links to other sites are intended to be informational and do not have the endorsement of the Texas Department of State Health Services. These sites may also not be accessible to people with disabilities. Links are provided as a courtesy. Please be advised that you are not emailing the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and DSHS policies do not apply should you choose to correspond.
Bioterrorism/Disaster Preparedness Resources from the Medical and Research Library.
CDC website on bioterrorism and other public health emergencies.
Texas Division of Emergency Management provides information on bioterrorism and disaster preparedness.
Health Ministries Association is an interfaith membership organization, serving the people who belong to the Faith Health Ministry Movement. This is the national organization's website.
Interfaith Health Program is a faith-based community partnerships: reaching vulnerable populations.
National Health Observances are days, weeks, or months devoted to promoting particular health concerns.
Nurses Christian Fellowship provides a local, regional, national and international network for Christian nursing. It is the home of the Journal of Christian Nursing.
Spiritual Care Association provides global support for faith community nurses.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality: Emergency Preparedness
provides guidelines on preparing for emergencies like hurricanes, tornados, drought, wildfires, and more.
Texas Community Nursing and Health Promotion. The Faith Community Nursing program through Texas Health coordinates with registered nurse in your congregation to provide health-related programs tailored to the needs of your members and/or the neighborhood served.
Texas Health Ministries Network is for Faith Community Nursing, Chaplains, Clergy, Health Promoters, and Volunteers.
Texas Nurses Association, District 5 is the website for District 5 of TNA, the state-wide membership-based association of registered nurses.
United Methodist Association of Health and Welfare Ministries provides information on UMA's faith-based ministries.
Westberg Institute for Faith Community Nursing. Westberg Institute has joined with the Spiritual Care Association to promote faith community nursing on a global scale.
Devido JA, Doswell WM, Braxter BJ, Terry MA, Charron-Prochownik D. Exploring the experiences, challenges, and approaches of parish nurses in their community practice. J Holist Nurs. 2019 Jun;37(2):121-129. doi: 10.1177/0898010118801414.
Purpose: To explore the personal experiences, challenges, and practices of parish nurses in their communities.
Method/Design: The overall study used a mixed methods concurrent embedded design to describe parish nurses' experiences with diabetes education and preconception counseling in their practice. Also included were descriptions of generalized practices. Therefore, this current report will focus on these broader experiences. Focus group data were collected using face-to-face, teleconference, and video conferencing formats with 48 nurses who consider themselves to be parish nurses and analyzed with content analysis.
Zahnd WE, Jenkins WD, Shackelford J, Lobb R, Sanders J, Bailey A. Rural Cancer Screening and Faith Community Nursing in the Era of the Affordable Care Act. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2018;29(1):71-80. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2018.0008.
Rural populations often face higher cancer rates and have lower cancer screening rates than urban populations. Screening disparities may be mediated by limited access to care, less knowledge of screening, and psychosocial factors. While the improved insurance rates and more comprehensive coverage under the Affordable Care Act may address some of these barriers, rural-urban disparities in cancer screening may not be fully attenuated. Faith-based interventions have been an effective approach to improving cancer screening among rural and underserved populations. Similarly, faith community nurses (FCNs) may be an effective agent for implementing evidence-based cancer screening strategies in rural communities. We provide a model for how FCNs standards of professional performance and practice can enable them to implement screening strategies. We also posit two recommendations of services that FCNs can provide to improve cancer screening in rural areas: educational messaging and patient navigation.
Bone N, Swinton M, Hoad N, Toledo F, Cook D. Critical Care Nurses' Experiences With Spiritual Care: The SPIRIT Study. Am J Crit Care. 2018 May;27(3):212-219. doi: 10.4037/ajcc2018300.
Background: Little is known about the effect of chaplains on critical care nurses who are caring for critically ill patients and their families.
Objective: To understand nurses' experiences when they make a referral to the Spiritual Care Department for a patient or the family of a patient who is dying or deceased. Specific aims were to explore spiritual care's effect on nurses and how nurses understand the role of spiritual care in practice.
Kazmer MM, Glueckauf RL, Schettini G, Ma J, Silva M. Qualitative Analysis of Faith Community Nurse-Led Cognitive-Behavioral and Spiritual Counseling for Dementia Caregivers. Qual Health Res. 2018 Mar;28(4):633-647. doi: 10.1177/1049732317743238.
This article presents themes emerging from semistructured interviews with dementia family caregivers in rural communities who participated in an integrative, cognitive-behavioral and spiritual counseling intervention, and with faith community nurses (FCNs) who delivered the intervention. The primary objectives of the counseling intervention were to ameliorate dementia caregivers' depressive affect and the severity of their self-identified caregiving and self-care problems. The qualitative portion of the study was intended to elicit caregivers' and FCNs' perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of the intervention. We conducted interviews with seven FCN/caregiver pairs 4 times during the 6-month counseling process, totaling 56 interviews. Themes emerging from the interviews included caregivers' perception of burden and care partners' problem behavior; formation of therapeutic alliance between FCNs and caregivers; problem-solving skills, tools, and resources; caregivers' use of problem-solving strategies; spirituality in caregiving and counseling processes; FCNs' prior professional experience; and caregiver and FCN time constraints.
Availability: These are probably only available from the university or college where they were submitted or through a commercial information service like ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. Check with your local library to see if inter-library loan service is available.
Bagley, Carol A. Parish Nurse Practice Implementation: Opportunities and Barriers. Ph.D. dissertation, Walden University, 2011 (130 p.).
Bay, Mary Josephine. Educational and Experiential Formation in Parish Nursing. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, 2004 (189 p.).
Bokinskie, Jean C. Perceived levels of empowerment in parish nursing. Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Dakota, 2010 (209 p.).
Burkhart, Elizabeth Ely. An Instance of Knowledge Representation: Measuring the Domain Completeness of the Nursing Interventions Classification System in Parish Nurse Documentation. Ph.D. dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago, 2002 (269 p.).
Cater, Gloria Jean Harris. Faith Community Nursing: A Case Study of Its Impact on African Americans with Type 2 Diabetes. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts Boston, 2010 (141 p.).
Clark, Margaret Beckwith. Interdisciplinary Ministry Collaboration: Faith and Health. D.Min. dissertation, St. Stephen's College, Canada, 2000 (213 p.).
Devido, Jessica. Exploring the Role of the Parish Nurse in Providing Diabetes Education and Preconception Counseling to African American Women Using a Community-Engaged Mixed Methods Approach. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2014 (226 p.).
Flahive, Margaret Mary. Parish nurses: Promoting a Ministry of Service in Catholic Parishes in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Ed.D. dissertation, Cardinal Stritch University, 2002 (171 p.).
Gotwals, Beth Ann. Parish nurses' perceived self-efficacy in nutritional health promotion and disease prevention counseling. Ph.D. dissertation, Widener University School of Nursing, 2011 (237 p.).
King MA. The experience of choosing the parish nurse for health care services. Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University, 2007 (148 p.).
Mang, Ann Marie. Parish Nursing. M.S. dissertation, D'Youville College, 2001 (79 p.).
Mendelson SG. A Community-Based Parish Nurse Intervention Program for Mexican-American Women with Gestational Diabetes. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2007 (124 p.).
Mobley, Deborah Darlene Simpson. The lived experience of faith community nurses living the call to health ministry. Ph.D. dissertation, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 (158 p.).
Moss MM. Nursing students' perceptions of clients' spirituality, spiritual needs, and spiritual care in faith communities. Ph.D. dissertation, George Mason University, 2007 (139 p.).
Myers, M. Parish nursing: A process of authenticating self through wholistic theocentric interconnecting. Dissertation, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, 2000. [Contact lmmyers@wcl.on.ca for more information.]
Potter, Marcia. The Role of Health Ministry in the Global Healthcare Arena. M.A. dissertation, State University of New York Empire State College, 2006 (79 p.).
Roy L. Identification of the spiritual nursing care practices of volunteer parish nurses. Thesis, California State University, San Bernardino, Department of Nursing, 2003.
Shores, Cynthia I. The impact of a faith community nursing program on a culturally diverse community. Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2011 (425 p.).
Solari-Twadell, Phyllis Ann. The Differentiation of the Ministry of Parish Nursing Practice within Congregations. Ph.D. dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago, 2002 (227 p.).
Timko TA. Informal caregivers' perceptions of social support provided by parish nurses. Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America, 2009 (126 p.).
Tormoehlen, Lucy. A Learning Needs Assessment of Parish Nurses. Ed.D. dissertation, Ball State University, 2009 (136 p.).
Voisine, Michelle Casey. The Lived Experience of Recipients of Parish Nursing Care. M.S.N. dissertation, Southern Connecticut State University, 2004 (79 p.).