Spiritual Needs Assessment Tool
Running head: THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS ASSESSMENT TOOL
The Spiritual Needs Assessment Tool
Grand Canyon University
Spirituality in Health Care
HLT-310V
September 06, 2011
The Spiritual Needs Assessment Tool
For health care providers to deliver the best holistic care that patients deserve, a thorough spiritual assessment must be included during their care. With more research showing a relationship between supporting a patient’s spirituality with their health and ability to cope with illness, it is now a requirement of organizations to include a spiritual assessment to maintain accreditation with The Joint Commission. The minimum required of a spiritual assessment by The Joint Commission is to determine the patient’s religion and if they have any spiritual practices that are important to them (The Joint Commission, 2005). When I first began my research for this assignment, I believed that was all my facility included in our spiritual assessment done upon admission; just the minimum. There is a very small section in the admission database titled “Spirituality.” In this section there are two questions: “Do you have a religious preference” and “do you have any religious or cultural beliefs that may affect your care during your stay?” When I came across more material and all that should be included in a thorough spiritual assessment, I found that my facility’s admission database included a very comprehensive spiritual assessment placed throughout the admission database. Therefore, my facilities admission database served as a great reference in creating a spiritual assessment tool and serve as great way to ease into such a personal conversation. Many of my questions were created from the three empirical referents of spiritual well-being (personal faith, spiritual contentment and religious practice) and from intervening variables (severity of illness, social support and stressful life events) of the middle-range theory of spiritual well-being in illness
The Spiritual Needs Assessment Tool
Grand Canyon University
Spirituality in Health Care
HLT-310V
September 06, 2011
The Spiritual Needs Assessment Tool
For health care providers to deliver the best holistic care that patients deserve, a thorough spiritual assessment must be included during their care. With more research showing a relationship between supporting a patient’s spirituality with their health and ability to cope with illness, it is now a requirement of organizations to include a spiritual assessment to maintain accreditation with The Joint Commission. The minimum required of a spiritual assessment by The Joint Commission is to determine the patient’s religion and if they have any spiritual practices that are important to them (The Joint Commission, 2005). When I first began my research for this assignment, I believed that was all my facility included in our spiritual assessment done upon admission; just the minimum. There is a very small section in the admission database titled “Spirituality.” In this section there are two questions: “Do you have a religious preference” and “do you have any religious or cultural beliefs that may affect your care during your stay?” When I came across more material and all that should be included in a thorough spiritual assessment, I found that my facility’s admission database included a very comprehensive spiritual assessment placed throughout the admission database. Therefore, my facilities admission database served as a great reference in creating a spiritual assessment tool and serve as great way to ease into such a personal conversation. Many of my questions were created from the three empirical referents of spiritual well-being (personal faith, spiritual contentment and religious practice) and from intervening variables (severity of illness, social support and stressful life events) of the middle-range theory of spiritual well-being in illness
References: Dameron, C. M. (2005). Spiritual assessment made easy: with acronyms!. Journal of Christian Nursing, 22(1), 14-16. LaRocca-Pitts, M. (2009). In FACT, chaplains have a spiritual assessment tool. Australian Journal of Pastoral Care and Health, 3(2), 8-15. O’Brien, M. E. (2011). Spirituality in nursing: Standing on Holy Ground (4th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett. The Joint Commission. (2005, February). Evaluating your spiritual assessment process [Electronic version]. The Source, 3(2), 6-7. Retrieved September 2, 2011, from http://www.pastoralreport.com/archives/spiritual.pdf Touro Institute. (n.d.). Spiritual assessment and care [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved September1, 2011 from http://www.touroinstitute.com/6%20Spiritual%20Assessment%20and%20Care.pdf