Poster can be found in location 29.

Background:   Existential/spiritual questions often arise when a person suffers from a serious and/or life-threatening illness. ‘Existential’ can be seen as a broad inclusive term for issues surrounding people’s experience and way of thinking about life. This broad definition enables us to investigate and work with the existential dimension in a country like Sweden, which is regarded as highly secular. To be able to meet patients’ existential needs, knowledge is needed about what the existential dimension includes. Aim: To investigate how professionals caring for people with life-threatening disease perceive the existential dimension of care. Methods: Health care professionals in specialized palliative care, an oncology clinic and municipal elderly care have been asked in a survey how they perceive existential questions, - needs and - care. Results: According to the 77 responding professionals: Existential questions encompassed a broad spectrum. Most prominent were the meaning of life, thoughts about life and death, and life after death. Existential needs were centred around the possibility to communicate, to share your thoughts and experiences; to be seen and heard. Existential care was most often connected to communication, sharing moments in the present without doing anything and sometimes described as an ordinary care intervention, performed by all professionals. The professionals regarded the existential dimension as important. Conclusions: Identifying existential needs and performing existential care is considered a possible task for any professional as it is a matter of attitude and responsiveness. In this sense, many considered existential care imbedded in all care. Even though Sweden is considered a secular country, the existential dimension is expressed to be important by the majority of the participants in this study.