Spiritual needs Assessment
Punnackal house Jolly
Grand Canyon University
Spirituality in Health care
HLT-310V

May 1, 2011

Spiritual needs Assessment Spirituality is a sensitive subject, and not everyone is open to discussing one’s beliefs. How well a patient discusses their spirituality is somewhat dependent on the nurse. A caring empathetic nurse is more likely to develop and maintain a holistic rapport and trust with patient. However, their involvement is essential in promoting spiritual health among patients. The difficulty nurses face in implementing spiritual care with patients starts with their incorrect interpretation of the concept of spirituality. Spirituality is defined as an experience that a person has had that gives purpose and meaning to life and death; it may or may not include relationships with God, or other divine power. The key emphasis on a spiritual assessment is to be able to obtain patient information regarding spiritual health in order to plan nursing care. . Individualized plan of care and increased interaction with patients will make a great impact on patient’s care which will increase the self-esteem of the patient, and allow them to return to productive life style. “Meeting patients’ spiritual needs” is a medical professional duty as defined by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (Bensing, 2000). In 2001 JCAHO revised its accrediting standards and it is mandatory to do the spiritual assessment of every client in hospital settings. JCAHO suggests that assessment of patient’s spiritual needs should be carried out not only to determine religious denomination, but also to identify spiritual and religious beliefs and practices especially as related to coping with illness or disability Spiritual assessment tools are created to gain insight in to one’s or another’s spirituality and to evaluate how individuals practice spirituality in daily life. Many clinicians have developed tools for taking a spiritual history that helps in the recovery process and make the topic cover all the relevant points and easier to remember. FICA is one of the assessment tools among them which are developed by Christina Pulchalski (Pulchalski, 2000). FICA is an acronym for Faith, Importance, Community and Address. The Joint Commission provides some guidelines for creating spiritual assessment tools for evaluating spiritual needs of the patient. When the nurse is unclear or unfamiliar about the patient’s spiritual belief FICA model provides the basis for an organized, open non biased assessment. The author assessed Ms. Gloria 78 years old who got admitted recently with persistent cough and breathing difficulty diagnosed as cancerous lung mass. While assessing the spiritual needs, five questions were asked to Ms. Gloria. 1) Do you have any spiritual or faith belief? Gloria answered to the question immediately and verbalized being Catholic She believes in God and has good faith she also believes that hope is an element of spirit and as promises from God. Her hope is that the Almighty God helps her to overcome from the Illness 2) Are there spiritual items or practices that give you spiritual support? Gloria considers Holy Bible and Rosary as important element in her spiritual life. It helps her to keep mind calm and clear of disturbing thoughts, and focus on healing strength. 3) How about people or group? Is there someone provides spiritual support? It is understood that she is an active member of her parish Church. She attends Holy Mass in every Sunday and participates in charity works organized by Church . Community members conduct prayer meeting and she participate actively. 4) Is there anything I or someone can assist you with? Gloria expressed her wish to meet with catholic priest and for healing prayer 5) What you think is going to happen to you? Gloria was not frightened or sad or hopeless, in fact expressed meaningful and hopeful about life after death, and. believes that dying is the end of life in earth and entering to the eternal life. When a patient reaches the end of life care, she is dying. Out first priorities is always to protect the patient, providing care and comfort in his or her final days, regardless of the type of person he or she was. By holding the dying patient’s hand, they feel more comfortable and respect. After the spiritual needs assessment, the author determines that patient’s religious affiliation, beliefs and spiritual practices which are important for the patient. As the patient is a strong believer of the God, she likes prayers and blessings from priest. In our hospital we have multi-disciplinary team to meet the client’s spiritual needs and it includes physician, nurses, and clinical pastoral staff. The author arranged Chaplain’s visit and requested for priest for the patient. The client was so happy to have a prayer at her bedside, by holding her hand and sharing the Holy Communion, which makes her more comfortable and sense of well-being. The author provides her more religious resources which gave her more strength and hope. Allowing more time with family and friends helped her to express the spirituality. Administering the pain medication in timely manner reduced her suffering from pain and makes her pain free and comfortable. When the author discussed with the patient about end of life issues, what she want to be done when the breathing get worse asked for life prolonging supports. Gloria has expressed her wish not to get resuscitated at any circumstances. Addressing and supporting patient’s spirituality make health care experiences more positive and promote health, decrease depression and helps the patient cope with a difficult illness and improve the outcome of the patients. Even though she was suffering from severe pain and agony, she showed positive attitude towards life and death only because of her strong believe in spirituality. Her spiritual needs were met and everything went well. The author thinks that if the client is in a more stable condition can do a more detailed spiritual assessment and prepare a plan of care according to that which includes, attending Holy Mass in Chapel. Barriers to addressing spiritualties are lack of time due to heavy workload. The health care provider gets less time to do a detailed spiritual assessment for the patient. Another major barrier is nurse’s lack of spiritual knowledge or the unfamiliarity of the client’s belief. Lack of interaction with the family members to know about their beliefs is another barrier. The Hospitals need to encourage staff to take time for the spiritual assessment and provide staff with a clear framework of that assessment can help to address this challenge. Furthermore, the interactions with the family members revealed ways for the author to provide more support. The Joint Commission’s guidelines help the author to evaluate patient’s spiritual need and provide care accordingly.

To conclude, good spiritual care is recognized as an important part of high-quality care. Spirituality is recognized as a factor that contributes to health in many persons. The concept of spirituality is found in all cultures and societies. Assessing and listening to the spiritual needs of patients will help the nurse to provide spiritual care needed for patient. The nurse’s role in providing holistic care should include a spiritual assessment Identifying the problems that lead to nursing inadequacy in spiritual care helps to eliminate the problem. Educating nurses about the meaning of spirituality, implementing spiritual knowledge and understanding in nursing practice, and establishing proper spiritual assessment tools are some of strategies that lead to satisfactory spiritual care of patients.

References Baptist Healing Trust. (n.d.). Our mission. Retrieved onApril 26th,2011 from http://www.baptisthealingtrust.org/about/mission.php O’ Brien, M.E (2008). Spirituality in Nursing: Standing on Holy Ground (3rd edition.).Boston: Jones and Bartlett. The Joint Commission. (2008, November). Provision of care, treatment, and services: Spiritual assessment. Retrieved on April 26th 2011 http://www.jointcommission.org/AccreditationPrograms/LongTermCare/Standards/09_FAQs/PC/Spiritual_Assessment.htm