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“Nurse, please pray with me.”

Beth Hubbartt, RN, MSN, CRRN
Clinical Nurse Specialist, Rehabilitation
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center

Denise Corey, RN, BSN, CRRN
Rehabilitation Unit Based Educator
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center

Donald D. Kautz, RN, PhD, CNRN, CRRN Assistant Professor
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Bridgett Rasmussen, RN, BSN Graduate student
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro 

      Nurses may be asked by patients to pray with them or for them. Whether nurses should pray with patients has been a matter of longstanding controversy.  Yet decades of research show that many of our patients want nurses to pray with them (DiJoseph & Cavendish, 2005; Taylor, 2003). Prayer may benefit both the nurse and the patient; both may find comfort in prayer. Prayer may also help patients and their families adjust emotionally to their illness or life events and support the patients’ spiritual health.

      Unfortunately, nurses may not know prayers of different faiths.  In this article, we offer practical prayers from different faith traditions for patients and nurses wanting to pray.

      When a patient asks to pray, we recommend talking with patient’s to determine their prayer preference before starting to pray.  Some patients will want to pray silently.  Some patients will want the nurse to be present while they say a prayer out loud.  Others will want the nurse to lead them in prayer. Some will want to pray now, others may want the nurse to keep them in their prayers.

Short, Non-denominational Prayers

      Sometimes a short prayer is the best. In her book, Traveling mercies: Some thoughts on faith (2000) Lamont argues that the two most common prayers are “Please, please, please…” and “Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you…”  Patients and nurses who wish can add “God” or “Lord” to the beginning of any of these prayers, or “In Jesus’ name we pray” to the end.  A calming prayer is “Calm my fears and anxieties as I go through this day.”  Some wish to say a prayer in the morning.  One is “This is another day, O Lord. I do not know what the day will bring, but help me be ready to face the day.” A similar prayer is “Please give me strength and courage to get through this day.” Or “Help me Lord to be loving and kind to all I meet today.”  A prayer for both the patient and nurse is “God of compassion, source of life and health, give strength and new abilities to __(insert name)__, and give your power of healing for those who minister to _(insert name)__ needs.”   One nurse was often asked by the prisoners she cared for to pray with them.  She has found that “Lord, please give _(insert name)_ what he/she needs today” is very calming.  Some say the prayer that never fails is, “Thy will be done.”

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