[Meaning in life: attention to what is really important. Experiences in a nursing home of residents and relatives].

Moving to a nursing home has a major impact on the lives of residents and their relatives. The relationship with healthcare workers is often intensive and offers plenty of opportunities to pay attention to the spiritual dimension. Until now, it is unclear whether healthcare professionals pay attention to the spiritual dimension and how they apply it in daily contact. To provide insight into how residents and relatives experience attention for spirituality in the nursing home, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four residents and four relatives. Transcripts were analyzed according to the principles of reflexive, inductive thematic analysis. We identified three themes and seven sub-themes that contribute to attention for meaning in life and which we have named 'spiritual skills/meaning in life skills': Alignment (being present with attention and acknowledging individuality), connecting (aligning approach, aligning communication and building a care relationship) and deepening (deepening contact and acknowledging life-questions). Our study shows that healthcare professionals apply skills in their daily contact with residents that help them align and connect. However, it was not apparent from the interviews if they also deepened their contact. A combination of training, intervision-meetings and on-the-job coaching, as was also part of the broader study, is in line with the way care workers learn and what they need to further deepen their spiritual skills in practice.