| Sumario: | Meaning‐making is increasingly recognized as an important aspect of recovery‐oriented mental health care, yet its integration into everyday psychiatric nursing practice remains insufficiently understood. This scoping review aimed to map the available evidence on the role of nurses in addressing meaning‐related concerns, including existential, spiritual, and value‐oriented issues, in adult mental health care. A scoping review was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and reported in accordance with the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews. A systematic search of PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO was performed. Empirical qualitative and quantitative studies focusing on the role of nurses in relation to meaning‐making within mental health care were included. Data were charted and descriptively mapped using a standardized extraction form, and findings are presented in tabular and narrative formats. Thirty‐four studies were included. The findings show that nurses engage with meaning‐related concerns predominantly through everyday, relational aspects of care rather than through explicitly defined spiritual or existential interventions. Nurses supported meaning‐making by being present, listening to patients' narratives, exploring values, addressing experiences of suffering, and fostering hope and connectedness. These practices were closely intertwined with nurses' personal attitudes, professional identity, and perceptions of their role. Barriers included uncertainty about professional boundaries, a lack of education and confidence, and organizational constraints, whereas facilitators included reflective practice, team support, and recognition of meaning‐making as an integral part of nursing care. This review demonstrates that psychiatric nurses already play a substantial, though often implicit, role in supporting meaning‐making in mental health care. Greater acknowledgment of this role, alongside targeted education and organizational support, may strengthen holistic and recovery‐oriented psychiatric nursing practice.
|
|---|