Niels Christian Hvidt
Biographic Data
| ID | 1201137 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Niels Christian Hvidt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Niels Christian |
| FAMILY NAME | Hvidt |
| SIGNATURE | HVIDT N C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern Denmark |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6311-9784 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Local General Practitioner–Parish Minister Networks for Existential Care in Danish Primary Care—What Did We Learn? A Ricoeur-Inspired Focus Group Study
Locally grown GP-PM networks can reframe practice for both professions and open a pragmatic pathway for addressing patients' existential concerns. Relationship-building and early, appropriate patient inclusion appear central to momentum. Further research should examine patient outcomes and feasible models for collaboration that preserve confidentiality and role clarity
Interdisciplinary networks for existential patient support
Background Health is a holistic phenomenon, yet healthcare often falls short of this ideal due to economic and political pressures. The declared overarching goal of general practice is to provide holistic care, yet in daily practice, GPs face significant challenges due to workload pressures. As a result, certain aspects of patient suffering—particularly those related to existential concerns—remain insufficiently addressed. To help bridge this gap…
Spiritual needs following cancer diagnosis
Spiritual needs were elevated in recently diagnosed cancer individuals, although most pronounced within the first half year following diagnosis. This knowledge could be valuable in guiding holistic care plans tailored to the spiritual well-being of cancer patients. Future research in this area should focus on the link between reported need and wanted care and test potentially effective spiritual care interventions
Salutogenic health measures
Measurement of human flourishing represents a salutogenic approach to epidemiological and behavioral research emphasizing factors contributing to “good lives” rather than pathology. The objective of this study was to translate and psychometrically test the 10‐item Flourish Index (FI) and 12‐item Secure Flourish Index (SFI) in a convenience sample of Danish adults. A total of 325 participants completed a cross‐sectional survey, with 148 of those p…
“Life values and death” - a qualitative study on spiritual concepts and understandings of young children in Denmark
In secular societies, the adults’ vocabulary for talking with children about spiritual topics is limited. This negatively affects Danish children’s spiritual development as well as hinder spiritual care and conversations with adults. This study explores the spiritual understandings, needs, and language of Danish children by means of focus group interviews with 6–9-year-old children in elementary schools. Results suggest that Danish children exhib…
Mental health of Scandinavians during the first lockdown in the Covid‐19 pandemic
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic was a global health and economic crisis. In the early phase of the pandemic, studies found that populations were reporting lower levels of mental well-being and high levels of distress and worry. This study investigated potential protective and risk factors such as sociodemographics and psychological factors such as adaptation/coping. METHODS: Two convenience samples from Norway and Denmark were recruited during …
Meanings of “the existential” in a Secular Country
Is Religiousness Associated with Better Lifestyle and Health Among Danes? Findings from SHARE
The NERSH Questionnaire and Pool of Data from 12 Countries
The Association Between Individualised Religiosity and Health Behaviour in Denmark
The present study investigates whether social networks mediate the well-established positive association between religiosity and health behaviour. Most research has focused on traditional public religiosity (e.g. regular church attendance). This study, however, focuses on the Danish population in which non-traditional and private religiosity is common. We utilise data from the Danish population-based project, Early Detection and Prevention . Our …
Measuring Spiritual Needs in a Secular Society
In secular cultures, such as Denmark, tools to measure spiritual needs are warranted to guide existential and spiritual care. We examined the clinimetric properties of the Danish version of the Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (DA-SpNQ-20) based on a digital survey in a test-retest setup. A convenience sample was reached via social media and student platforms. A total of 325 (148 for retest) respondents were included in the analysis. The sample was …
Searching and Caring for the Sacred
We present knowledge from the field of psychology of religion for professional clinicians. The model “Search for the Sacred” and other concepts of psychology of religion are introduced: Sacred core and ring, sanctification, spiritual emotions, spiritual relationships, spiritual pathways, and sacred moments. These are discussed in relation to different concepts of theology for broadening the understanding and application of these concepts. Intervi…
Characteristics of Danish Centenarians’ Religious Beliefs
The International NERSH Data Pool of Health Professionals’ Attitudes Toward Religiosity and Spirituality in 12 Countries
A qualitative analysis of sacred moments in religiously integrated group therapy
The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore sacred moments in religiously integrated group therapy for Danish Pentecostals who were experiencing a personal crisis (n = 18). This was a follow-up study based on data from 2009 and 2018. An interpretative phenomenological analytical approach was used to generate and analyze the data material. Three themes emerged: 1) Relationship with God, 2) Relationship with therapist, and 3) Relationship wi…
Why We Suffer? Existential Challenges of Patients With Chronic Illness
To explore patients’ existential challenges when living with chronic pain or multiple sclerosis, 23 semistructured patient interviews were conducted together with an interpretative, phenomenological analysis inspired by Søren Kierkegaard. Patients experienced their illness as a “stroke of fate” resulting in despair and a profound struggle to find out, who they were, and how they could relate to themselves in their new life-situation. Becoming one…
Similarities and Differences between Danish and American Physicians' Religious Characteristics and Clinical Communication
Many physicians remain reticent to initiate or partake in discussions about their patients' religious and spiritual needs during the clinical encounter. Reasons for this may be insufficient time, capacity, education or training but may also be a product of variance in physicians' own religious or spiritual characteristics. The aim of this paper was to compare American and Danish physicians' religious characteristics, and to explore and compare Am…
Developing an Educational Course in Spiritual Care
Further improvement of spiritual care in palliative care is warranted. Particularly reducing barriers and enhancing spiritual care competencies among the healthcare professionals is needed. The aim was to develop a training course in spiritual care in close collaboration with patients and staff from two Danish hospices. We applied an action research design to ensure that the training course was rooted in everyday practice of patients and staff. T…
How Giving Birth Makes Sense
Association Between Danish Physicians’ Religiosity and Spirituality and Their Attitudes Toward End-of-Life Procedures
Religious Values in Clinical Practice are Here to Stay
Research to date has shown that health professionals often practice according to personal values, including values based on faith, and that these values impact medicine in multiple ways. While some influence of personal values are inevitable, awareness of values is important so as to sustain beneficial practice without conflicting with the values of the patient. Detecting when own personal values, whether based on a theistic or atheistic worldvie…
Religiosity and Health-Related Risk Behaviours in a Secular Culture—Is there a Correlation
In the present study, we examine the correlation between religiosity and health-related risk behaviours among citizens aged 29–60 based on a cross-sectional survey in Denmark, known for its more secular culture. Health-related risk behaviours such as smoking and alcohol intake are known to increase the risk of developing one or more chronic or life-threatening diseases. In this study religiosity, in a random sample of Danes, seems to be associate…
The Catalogue of Spiritual Care Instruments
Spiritual care has been a growing focus in international healthcare research over the last decades. The approaches to spiritual care are many and derive from many different medical fields and different cultural contexts and often remain unknown across healthcare areas. This points to a potential knowledge gap between existing instruments and the knowledge and use of them cross-disciplinarily and cross-culturally, and thus best practice insights a…
Religiousness and Diseases in Europe
Characteristics of Religious and Spiritual Beliefs of Danish Physicians
Research on meaning-making and health in secular society
Why We Suffer? Existential Challenges of Patients With Chronic Illness
To explore patients’ existential challenges when living with chronic pain or multiple sclerosis, 23 semistructured patient interviews were conducted together with an interpretative, phenomenological analysis inspired by Søren Kierkegaard. Patients experienced their illness as a “stroke of fate” resulting in despair and a profound struggle to find out, who they were, and how they could relate to themselves in their new life-situation. Becoming one…
The NERSH International Collaboration on Values, Spirituality and Religion in Medicine
Modern healthcare research has only in recent years investigated the impact of health care workers' religious and other moral values on medical practice, interaction with patients, and ethically complex decision-making. Thus far, no international data exist on the way such values vary across different countries. We therefore established the NERSH International Collaboration on Values in Medicine with datasets on physician religious characteristic…
Developing an Educational Course in Spiritual Care
Further improvement of spiritual care in palliative care is warranted. Particularly reducing barriers and enhancing spiritual care competencies among the healthcare professionals is needed. The aim was to develop a training course in spiritual care in close collaboration with patients and staff from two Danish hospices. We applied an action research design to ensure that the training course was rooted in everyday practice of patients and staff. T…
Guilt without fault
The International NERSH Data Pool-A Methodological Description of a Data Pool of Religious and Spiritual Values of Health Professionals from Six Continents
Collaboration within the recently established Network for Research on Spirituality and Health (NERSH) has made it possible to pool data from 14 different surveys from six continents. All surveys are largely based on the questionnaire by Curlin "Religion and Spirituality in Medicine, Perspectives of Physicians" (RSMPP). This article is a methodological description of the process of building the International NERSH Data Pool. The larger contours of…
Where is God in my dying? A qualitative investigation of faith reflections among hospice patients in a secularized society
Despite increased focus on the role of spiritual care in palliative care, there is limited knowledge about spirituality/religiosity among dying patients in secularized cultures such as Denmark. This study aims through semi-structured interviews with Danish hospice patients and participant observation to elucidate how hospice patients reflect and act upon their potential faith. The results demonstrate three dimensions of faith: (1) "Knowing" (cogn…
Christian Prophecy
Throughout the Hebrew Bible, God guides and saves his people through the words of his prophets. When the prophets are silenced, the people easily lose their way. What happened after the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ? Did God fall silent? The dominant position in Christian theology is that prophecy did indeed cease at some point in the past — if not with the Old Testament prophets, then with John the Baptist, with Jesus, with the …
Research on meaning-making and health in secular society
Six Understandings of the Word ‘Spirituality’ in a Secular Country
Spirituality is a growing research theme, especially in relation to health issues. The term is often poorly defined and one's understanding is often so broad that it becomes a mere frame word devoid of meaning. In this study, we asked 514 adult Danes about their understanding of the word ‘spirituality’. Factor analysis of the answers resulted in six different understandings of spirituality: (1) positive dimensions in human life and well-being; (2…
Religiousness and Religious Coping in a Secular Society
Religious Transformation Among Danish Pentecostals Following Personal Crisis and Group Psychotherapy
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Where is God in my dying? A qualitative investigation of faith reflections among hospice patients in a secularized society
Despite increased focus on the role of spiritual care in palliative care, there is limited knowledge about spirituality/religiosity among dying patients in secularized cultures such as Denmark. This study aims through semi-structured interviews with Danish hospice patients and participant observation to elucidate how hospice patients reflect and act upon their potential faith. The results demonstrate three dimensions of faith: (1) "Knowing" (cogn…
The NERSH International Collaboration on Values, Spirituality and Religion in Medicine
Modern healthcare research has only in recent years investigated the impact of health care workers' religious and other moral values on medical practice, interaction with patients, and ethically complex decision-making. Thus far, no international data exist on the way such values vary across different countries. We therefore established the NERSH International Collaboration on Values in Medicine with datasets on physician religious characteristic…
Use of Sedatives, Antidepressants and Antipsychotic Medicine among Seventh-day Adventists and Baptists in Denmark
Faith Moves Mountains—Mountains Move Faith
Research suggests opposite epidemiological forces in religion and health: (1). Faith seems to move mountains in the sense that religion is associated with positive health outcomes. (2). Mountains of bad health seem to move faith. We reflected on these forces in a population of 3000 young Danish twins in which all religiosity measures were associated with severe disease. We believe the reason for this novel finding is that the sample presents as a…
Religious Coping in a Christian Minority Group
Religious coping in Denmark has primarily been studied among the Danish majority with whom religious practice is limited. The aim of this study is to explore a small sample of Danish Pentecostals’ experiences of religious coping. The study includes semi-structured interviews with eighteen Danish Pentecostals facing a psychological crisis. Qualitative methods are applied for generating and analyzing the data material. The theme of religious indivi…
Risk aversion and religious behaviour
Guilt without fault
The International NERSH Data Pool-A Methodological Description of a Data Pool of Religious and Spiritual Values of Health Professionals from Six Continents
Collaboration within the recently established Network for Research on Spirituality and Health (NERSH) has made it possible to pool data from 14 different surveys from six continents. All surveys are largely based on the questionnaire by Curlin "Religion and Spirituality in Medicine, Perspectives of Physicians" (RSMPP). This article is a methodological description of the process of building the International NERSH Data Pool. The larger contours of…
Psychiatry, a Secular Discipline in a Postsecular World? A Review
Postsecular theory is developing in academic circles, including the psychiatric field. By asking what the postsecular perspective might imply for the secular discipline of psychiatry, the aim of this study was to examine the postsecular perspective in relation to the secular nature of psychiatry, by way of a narrative review. In a systematic search for literature, relevant articles were identified and analyzed thematically. Thirteen articles were…
Religiousness and Diseases in Europe
Characteristics of Religious and Spiritual Beliefs of Danish Physicians
Approaching the religious patient in forensic psychiatry, with special focus on ethnic minority patients
Ethnic minority patients are overrepresented in Danish forensic psychiatry and knowledge is needed on how these patients are approached in relation to religious and cultural issues. The aim of this study was to investigate how psychiatrists in Danish forensic psychiatry approach religious ethnic minority patients. The study revealed positive approach towards religious ethnic minority patients. However, unless religion features as part of the illn…
Approaching the religious psychiatric patient in a secular country
This article presents the findings of an empirical research project on how psychiatrists in a secular country (Denmark) approach the religious patients, and how the individual worldview of the psychiatrist influences this approach. The study is based on 22 interviews with certified psychiatrists or physicians in psychiatric residency. The article presents the theoretical and methodical grounding and introduces the analytical construct “subalterna…
How Giving Birth Makes Sense
Association Between Danish Physicians’ Religiosity and Spirituality and Their Attitudes Toward End-of-Life Procedures
Religious Values in Clinical Practice are Here to Stay
Research to date has shown that health professionals often practice according to personal values, including values based on faith, and that these values impact medicine in multiple ways. While some influence of personal values are inevitable, awareness of values is important so as to sustain beneficial practice without conflicting with the values of the patient. Detecting when own personal values, whether based on a theistic or atheistic worldvie…
Religiosity and Health-Related Risk Behaviours in a Secular Culture—Is there a Correlation
In the present study, we examine the correlation between religiosity and health-related risk behaviours among citizens aged 29–60 based on a cross-sectional survey in Denmark, known for its more secular culture. Health-related risk behaviours such as smoking and alcohol intake are known to increase the risk of developing one or more chronic or life-threatening diseases. In this study religiosity, in a random sample of Danes, seems to be associate…
The Catalogue of Spiritual Care Instruments
Spiritual care has been a growing focus in international healthcare research over the last decades. The approaches to spiritual care are many and derive from many different medical fields and different cultural contexts and often remain unknown across healthcare areas. This points to a potential knowledge gap between existing instruments and the knowledge and use of them cross-disciplinarily and cross-culturally, and thus best practice insights a…
Searching and Caring for the Sacred
We present knowledge from the field of psychology of religion for professional clinicians. The model “Search for the Sacred” and other concepts of psychology of religion are introduced: Sacred core and ring, sanctification, spiritual emotions, spiritual relationships, spiritual pathways, and sacred moments. These are discussed in relation to different concepts of theology for broadening the understanding and application of these concepts. Intervi…
Characteristics of Danish Centenarians’ Religious Beliefs
Psychology (35 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (34 works) · Medicine (25 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Danish (17 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (17 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (13 works) · Spirituality (11 works)