Assessing Spiritual Needs Paper

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Assessing the spiritual needs of a patient is equally as important as assessing their physical and emotional needs. For purpose of clarity, spirituality in this paper is defined as, “the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose, and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature and to the significant or sacred” (Borneman, Ferrell, & Puchalski, 2010, p. 165) The American Nurses Association (ANA) supports this belief with their position statement on end of life care. Nurses are responsible for initiating conversations with patients regarding their spiritual and cultural practices and preferences in order to respect their needs throughout their continuum of care (Position Statement, 2010). In order to assess the needs of a patient, the nurse must engage the patient in conversation, and ask specific questions designed to extrapolate the necessary information. There are many tools designed to assist the nurse with these specific questions. The Joint Commission provides examples of elements to include in a spiritual assessment ("Joint Commission," 2015). The author of this paper used these elements to design questions to assess the spiritual needs of a 52-year-old Asian female from Broomfield, Colorado. These questions, with their answers, can be found at the end of this paper.…show more content…
She is not ill at this time, but with three active children, and an athletic husband, she understands what it is like to be on the receiving end of patient care. SG was chosen to interview because of her strong Christian faith, and her ability to clearly articulate her needs and beliefs. The questions were presented to SG ahead of time in order for her to process the questions and reflect on her answers. SG was open an honest with her responses, and it was easy for the author to assess her

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