Patients’ spiritual needs are important in everyday clinical practice

More and more healthcare systems recognise the need of spiritual care for patients. Being aware that each person has a unique spirituality enables medical workers to support them irrespective of their declared religion. However, there is some difficulty in recognising problems concerning spirituality because of its non-empirical character. The aim of the following article is to help medical professionals to identify the spiritual needs of patients. For this purpose, differences between spirituality, religion, and faith are discussed, classification of spiritual needs is proposed, and the term “spiritual distress” is characterised.