Nursing as a Profession
Nursing as a profession promotes a holistic approach to care delivery, from the patient's mind to body to spirit. Evaluating patients' spiritual requirements in health care facilities is critical to providing adequate health care. There are several recommended formal and informal spiritual assessment instruments available to help nurses evaluate patients' spiritual needs and effectively address their spirituality. According to research, a patient's faith has a good impact on their health outcomes (Seddigh & Azarnik, 2016). As a result, it is critical for health care providers to recognize how belief issues can impact the delivery of health services. While spiritual needs is a complicated and multi-dimensional concept, this paper focuses on a single cancer patient and analyzes the importance of spiritual assessment in health care.
Analysis
The significance of religion and spirituality in coping with illness and suffering has a great recognition. Studies indicate that patients understand and justify their suffering concerning their spirituality. In this case, a 32-year-old African-American woman believes that her suffering is regarding God’s will. The recognition of patients’ spiritual needs in Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organization (JCAHO) and Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) illustrates the importance of health care professions in meeting the patient’s spiritual needs (Galek, Flannelly, Vane, & Galek, 2005). Nurses work in efforts to improving the quality of life and controlling suffering as such it is fundamental for them to probe on the patients' spiritual needs.
Importance of Understanding Patient's Spiritual Affiliations
It is only through acquiring a better understanding of a patient’s spiritual affiliations will the nurses be able to develop tailored and effective spiritual interventions in care giving. Spirituality is intangible and mystical and as such difficult to encapsulate. In many cases, questionnaires and personal interviews are used to discern a patient’s philosophy of life. For instance, in this case, five questions have been able to capture how Christianity has shaped the interviewee perceptions on cancer and the desire to recover. That illustrates the patient’s attitude towards medical procedures. The interview uses the FICA spiritual history tool together with the HOPE questions of assessment spiritually.
Spiritual Needs in Serious Diseases
Spiritual needs are of particular importance in serious underlying diseases such as cancer. While the correlation between spirituality and health outcomes is difficult to discern, it is important to grant spiritual attention to patients as persons. Religion and faith seem to be an important aspect of decision making in cancer patients hence correlating with the quality of life. For instance, a study carried out in culturally diverse urban population in the USA indicated that most patients have spiritual needs and a majority thought that it is appropriate to get inquired about these requirements. The conclusions of the survey showed that those whose spiritual needs did not get addressed reported lower ratings of quality and satisfaction care (Astrow, Wexler, Texeria, He, & Sulmasy, 2007). The study illustrates the importance of spiritual inquiry regardless of urban and rural settings and how it influences the quality of care.
Barriers to Addressing Spiritual Needs
Given its pervasiveness, spirituality frequently affects patient encounter. Many physicians cite different reasons for the lack of addressing patient’s spirituality from lack of time, to lack of experience in religious affiliations to the belief that addressing spiritual issues is not majorly important in patients’ recovery (Saguil & Phelps, 2012). To meet these barriers health facilities have invested in tools and training programs to improve professional efficiency in spiritual issues. Conducting spiritual assessment for terminally ill and other hospitalized patients are important since it increases chances of quality care.
Conclusion
Spiritual assessment is important since it allows the physicians to incorporate the patients’ beliefs in treatment. The concept of the nurses listening compassionately to an important concept such as spirituality shows that they care for the patient. Regardless of whether patients are devoted to any spiritual traditions their personal beliefs are important. Different cultures may affect standard medical procedures prompting changes that are relevant to the patient. It is important for health professionals to invest on accessing the spiritual needs in their patients since it increases the effectiveness of the patient-physician relationship. In the case of the interview, the questions illustrated that she has the hope of beating cancer the second time and believes that everything the physician does reflects on God’s will for her health.
Interview
How do you express your spirituality?
I am a Christian who believes that everything works according to the will of God. I believe we are on earth for a particular purpose which works for the good of the society. I express my spirituality through living by God’s commandments in the hope that at the end of life I will be redeemed and live in God’s presence forever.
How do you consider health and sickness according to your religion?
Being healthy according to me is a sign of God’s blessings in life. He holds our life in his hands and as such being healthy is evidence of the abundance of His love in our life. On the contrary, sicknesses are like temptations in our life. Sicknesses are merely temptations sent to increase our faith. As a survivor of cancer, I believe that diseases are meant to strengthen us. My faith has increased tremendously in the past two years which would otherwise be impossible had I not suffered cancer.
Regarding your reference to sickness and health, what are your thoughts on dying?
If I were to die today, I would get assured that it was according to the will of God. In my opinion, people only die when they fulfill their purpose on earth. In many cases, we are caught off guard since we have set our own goals which may differ from God’s will. I would wish to live for several decades to see my grandchildren to grow.
How has your religion and faith helped you cope with cancer?
As you already know, cancer is hard not only to me but also to my family especially my two girls. But the faith I have that I have not done enough by my children keeps me going. Every morning I pray that God grants me the strength to keep going. Our pastor was adamant that I should not lose faith when I was receiving my first cancer treatment.
In general, how has your illness affected your view of life and that of your family?
Since surviving cancer the first time, I value life more. Small experiences like going to the mall with my daughters that used to be merely ordinary are the hallmark of my days. I have connected to God more since I believe He gave me a second chance in life. I value life, work on what I feel are excellent courses. My perceptive of life has extended to my family since they were with me in my suffering and appreciate that I recovered. I am praying that I beat it again to continue experiencing life.
References
Astrow, A., Wexler, A., Texeria, K., He, K., & Sulmasy, D. (2007 ). Is failure to meet spiritual needs associated with cancer patients' perceptions of quality of care and their satisfaction with care? Journal of Clinical Oncology, 5753-5757.
Galek, K., Flannelly, K., Vane, A., & Galek, R. (2005). Assessing a Patient's Spiritual needs: A comprehensive instruement. Holistic Nursing Practice, 62-69.
Saguil, A., & Phelps, K. (2012). The Spiritual Assessment. American Family Physcian, 546-550.
Seddigh, R., & Azarnik, S. (2016). Questionnaires Measuring Patients' Spiritual Needs: A narrative literature review. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral sciences.
