Exploring the "new" frontier of spirituality in health care: Identifying the dangers

Enthusiasm is growing in nursing and medicine for addressing spirituality and religious needs in patient care. We urge caution and stress the need for greater awareness of the dangers involved. The first danger is the lack of any attention given to how informed consent might be relevant to the topic of patient autonomy in spiritual health care decisions. The second danger is that the major health care providers, nursing and medicine, are not adequately educated to provide such care. The third danger is that we have not yet sufficiently clarified the roles of the various providers and as a consequence coordination of quality spiritual care is in jeopardy.