Closing the Gap on Faith Community Nurse Self-Care

Self-care is critical to nurses' health and ability to offer high-quality care, yet national surveys and research with several nursing specialties point to a lack of self-care by nurses. Furthermore, although self-care is a phenomenon that holds historical and evolved awareness and meanings, a common conceptualization of nurses' perspectives of self-care is lacking. This phenomenological study investigated the lived experience of self-care in a previously unexplored nursing specialty-faith community nursing. Interviews with 13 faith community nurses (FCNs) from across the United States contribute to an emic view of FCN self-care as well as a deeper understanding and description of faith community nursing practice.