The relationship between spirituality and healthcare is historical, intellectual and practical, and it has now emerged as a significant field in health research, healthcare policy and clinical practice and training. Understanding health and wellbeing requires addressing spiritual and existential issues, and healthcare is therefore challenged to respond to the ways spirituality is experienced and expressed in illness, suffering, healing and loss. If healthcare has compassionate regard for the humanity of those it serves, it is faced with questions about how it understands and interprets spirituality, what resources it should make available and how these are organised, and the ways in which spirituality shapes and informs the purpose and practice of healthcare? These questions are the basis for this resource, which presents a coherent field of enquiry, discussion and debate that is interdisciplinary, international and vibrant.

There is a growing corpus of articles in medical and healthcare journals on spirituality in addition to a wide range of literature, but there has been no attempt so far to publish a standard text on this subject. Spirituality in Healthcare is an authoritative reference on the subject providing unequalled coverage, critical depth and an integrated source of key topics. Divided into six sections including practice, research, policy and training, the project brings together international contributions from scholars in the field to provide a unique and stimulating resource.