State of Research for Faith Community Nursing 2009

The aim of this paper is to report the current state of research for Faith community Nursing (FCN), reviewing the related research literature dating back to 1993. Over 20 years old, the practice of FCN is a maturing specialty practice that links religious communities and health through professional nursing, but no review of research literature is published. The review of the literature was done utilizing the Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and PubMed. The keyword terms selected for search were: faith community nursing, parish nursing, and/or church nursing for the years 1993–2008. The review identifies four major content areas in the FCN research literature: (1) development and implementation of FCN practices; (2) roles and activities of faith community nurses; (3) FCN evaluation and documentation; and (4) congregation perceptions of FCN. Overall, findings indicate the FCN literature documents successful approaches for developing faith community programs, provides descriptive analyses of this specialty practice and perceptions associated with the practice, yet inadequately addresses the relationship of FCN to patient outcomes. To advance the effectiveness for this growing specialty, emphasis must be placed on measuring FCN components and related outcomes with analyses yielding evaluative data on the efficacy of this practice in terms of educational, psychosocial, spiritual, and physiological care.