The Role of Spirituality in Health Care Essay

During the last week I have been observing spiritual needs of patients in the Carl T Hayden Medical center in Phoenix Arizona. A majority of the assessment was observation based and one patient was open to some questions. The assessment tool I used is a set of five questions and the tool is always preceded by observation. The assessment is based on the observation period involves looking for obvious signs of religious or spiritual activity. These signs could be religious literature in the patient possession, wearing religious insignia; such a necklace with a cross or Star of David, and noticing the activity of the chaplain rounds. My assessment is based off of the F.I.C.A

One of the most difficult yet, pivotal times in a person 's’ life is when they are reaching the end of their life’s journey. A common coping mechanism utilized in the current hospice care system is spiritual care. However, when patients and their families hear the word “spirituality” they often think this type of care focuses exclusively on religious affiliations. While a person’s religious views greatly influence one’s spirituality, many researchers agree a person’s spirituality can take on a variety forms and meanings. For example, some people view their spirituality in a religious form, while others view their spirituality in a more general and non-religious form, which can make a hospice social worker, or chaplain’s job challenging at times. Because the current elderly society is rapidly growing in numbers, it is critical that further research is concentrated on the training and social work curriculum of spiritual care, so hospice social workers can become more culturally and spiritually competent, and ultimately possess the proper skills to adequately offer spiritual assistance as an option to ease the death, dying and grieving process for patients and their families.

“Spirituality and religion has been identified as an essential component in care for those who are seriously ill and/or dying.” Social workers need to be able to respond appropriately to the needs of all service to users who depends on their spirituality to live day by day. Culturally competent practice depends on an understanding and appreciation of the impact of faith and belief. Social workers need to be open to various religious, spiritual and non-spiritual or secular individual views. Some people seek help from their spiritual healer instead of going to see a doctor. “Many medical and social care professionals feel uncomfortable discussing religious and spiritual beliefs with patients, and therefore do not address this critical component

Evidence has linked a strong relationship between spirituality and medicine. There is a positive correlation between a patient’s spirituality or religious commitment and health outcomes. A spiritual assessment as a part of a health assessment is a practical step to incorporating patient’s spiritual needs into practice. The FICA Tool and HOPE Questions provide serve to assist clinicians in the spiritual assessment process. By examining the research done using these tools, it has been determined that the FICA Tool is easy to use and provides basic data on a patient’s spirituality. The FICA tool is both reliable and valid. The HOPE Questions are

How do your spiritual beliefs apply to your health? The most successful nurses can demonstrate a cultural awareness of self first which then carriers over into a keener cultural awareness of others. This understanding helps a nurse since over the past several decades most health organizations have been encouraged to become more culturally aware of the populations they serve and required to conform to national standards implemented by organizations such as The Joint Commission, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services organizations (Potter, Perry, & Stockert, 2016). Cultural self-awareness is a key to help all nurses provide the standard of cultural competent care set forth by the above listed national organizations.

There are many spiritual assessment tools such as FICT, FACT, HOPE, RCOPE, Stoll’s guidelines etc. According to LaRocca, (2007), healthcare professionals in acute care setting can use another spiritual assessment tool “FACT”. I like this tool because it is short and easy to use. This tool includes a short history with three questions (Faith, Availability, and Coping) plus an outcome (Treatment). A spiritual history provides information about a person’s spiritual life, history, and practices and on how these affect their ability to cope with their present healthcare crisis. It is important to know because faith or spirituality helps patient to cope with a health crisis. Furthermore, it is a fact that a person’s faith or spiritual practice affects

This assignment will discuss what assessment questions are appropriate when doing a spiritual assessment with a client and what questions are relevant to that particular case and for that client. In addition, for this case study the psychosocial spiritual assessment will be discussed for the client Anna and what questions would best fit for her case. Furthermore, this paper will discuss why certain questions were asked and others were not because not all the questions listed for the spiritual assessment in the textbook might be relevant to this particular client. Anna does talk openly with the social worker Marie and I feel that asking her questions might be easier because she is willing to share her thoughts and feelings compared to the case study of Lynn which would be more difficult to address in her situation.

It is important to study this topic because most of the population is spiritual and or religious or possibly both spiritual and religious. This could possibly be a great indicator of a need that can and should be addressed. To treat a patient you need an assessment and an effective

As Christians, we are taught to not judge others because it is not our place, so as nurses we would not judge our patients and their personal decisions. I believe Christianity makes us more understanding of people and the situations they are going through. Being understanding can help us to respect our patient’s religious/nonreligious views. An important effect this faith-based program could have on our future careers as nurses is our level of holistic care. At MVNU, we are taught to love all of God’s creations. We are supposed to think of all humans as our brothers and sisters, this could affect how much we care for our patients emotionally. Christian nurses may be better morally guided when providing care. We may be able to connect with some of our patients on a deeper level because of our spirituality. This faith-based program will help us work towards doing everything in Christ’s

Spirituality has been in and out of healthcare and has proven effective every time that it is used. Implementing spirituality into healthcare allows for faster recovery times, better interpersonal relationships with their healthcare providers, and a more holistic approach to healthcare. Several approaches to analyzing it have proven it to be effective but is often not taught when educating future nurses. Through the barriers and the controversy spirituality remains as an important aspect of a patient’s recovery process.

Spirituality is considered one of the components of health and wellness, and is a contributory factor in the delivery of holistic care (O’Shea, Wallace, Griffin, & Fitzpatrick, 2011). It only makes sense for us nurses to study and research spirituality since the nursing profession is committed to holistic development, which includes the spiritual dimension of life. However, elements such as time constraints, short staffing, insufficient formal education related to spiritual assessment and confusion between spirituality and religion have led to spirituality becoming a disregarded component of care (O’Shea et al., 2011). Adolescence is a crucial time in the development of a person’s spiritual path (Benson & Roehlkepartain, 2008). Findings showed that most adolescents hold spiritual or religious beliefs already and choose to draw on them when experiencing life-changing events. Despite this information, healthcare professionals overlook the spiritual needs of adolescents (Neuman, 2011).

Some barriers that may inhibit one’s ability to complete a spiritual assessment are: poor timing, lack of training, discomfort with the subject matter (patient or provider), provider’s uncertainty of own spirituality, concepts of spirituality differ among all, and a lack of clues and/or cues by the patient that may open the doors to initiate a genuine conversation (Dameron, 2005; Joint Commission, 2005). It is important the health care provider maintains a non-judgmental approach and must be careful not to impose his or her

The nurse must examine his or her own philosophies of spiritual, cultural and social beliefs and understand the way they shape and mold the method in which they deliver care. The purpose of identifying one’s own foundations is so that you may differentiate between that of your own and your patient’s beliefs in order to provide unbiased care (Leininger, 2002, p. 190).

Health care providers come in contact with tons of patients every day. This means that they see a variety of different faiths such as Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Atheism, and more (Abu-Raiya, 2015). To maintain good relationships with patients, health care providers must have some kind of knowledge, and/or acceptance, for all types of faith and how they are expressed (“Lecture 1”, 2016). Two types of faiths commonly seen in health care are Christianity and Buddhism (Abu-Raiya, 2015). Each have their own unique belief system and answer the worldview questions differently. Additionally, there are many components of healing as well as important factors for providers to have when working with others of a different faith. A personal perspective of healing can help one understand how this can be applied to health care.

I, being a medical caretaker, have the aim of providing healing to the patients whom I attend in my hospital. I, being a catholic have the strong faith that every human being is of body, soul and mind. It is true that the developments in the medical field can provide healing to the patient to a certain extent. But at the same it is true that one’s spiritual dispositions are also important in the process of healing. So when one medical caretaker attends a patient, it is a necessity to attend the needs of his spiritual needs too. So I make the spiritual assessment of my patient. I use here the assessment tool of FACT which was developed by LaRocca- Pitts M. It will serve to find out the faith formulations of my