Importance of Spiritual Assessment in Healthcare: Analysis of a Patient's Spiritual Beliefs

Running head: SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
Spiritual Assessment Tool:
Spiritual beliefs of patients play important role in healthcare issues and managements of
the patients. Studies are therefore of the opinion that besides considering the physical, social as
well as biological determinants of health, the spiritual beliefs also need to be assessed by
practitioners (Gomez et al., 2015). Spiritual beliefs of patients might have positive or negative
interferences with healthcare interventions and therefore, professionals need to take in
consideration of the spiritual beliefs of patients while designing their care plan. Researchers are
of the opinion that spiritual assessments allow the healthcare professionals in supporting patients
by stressing empathetic listening, effective documentation of the spiritual preferences for the
future visits and incorporation of the precepts of the patient’s faith traditions into the treatment
plans (Hodge et al., 2015). It also involves effective encouragement of the patients in using
resources of the spiritual traditions and communities for overall wellness (Goncalves et al.,
2016). The assignment will exhibit analysis of the information provided by a patient regarding
her culture and will show how spiritual beliefs need to be incorporated by professionals during
healthcare planning. This will exhibit the importance of spiritual assessment of patients for
developing healthcare interventions that develop the quality of life of the patients.
Spiritual Assessment Tool:
FACT tool will be used in the assignment. This tool is a spiritual assessment tool that is
developed for the chaplaincy utilization in the acute care settings. Even other healthcare
professionals who are also interested in the spiritual acre of their patients can also utilize this tool
(LaRocca et al., 2012). One of the most important features is that the tool does not gather history
as done by the healthcare professionals while documenting medical history. In place, it helps in

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SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
providing information for the assignment based which healthcare interventions would be
planned. The four letters of the word FACT stand for four important elements in the spiritual
assessment of the patients who come for treatment. The first element would mainly discuss the
faith or the spiritual beliefs of the patient. The second element discusses availability,
accessibility as well as applicability of the spiritual support from the religious communities or
not (LaRocca-Pitts, 2015). The third element mainly involves effective cooing or comforting as
well as conflicting aspects of the spiritual values of the patient with the regular healthcare
diagnosis of the patient. The fourth element is called the treatment plan that would mainly
describe the treatment plans that would be developed depending upon the spiritual requirements
of the patients.
Interview:
A patient named Savanna Morris came to the acute care centre with poorly managed
diabetes and osteoarthritis. She was 42 years of age and was of African American origin. I chose
the patient as she was from a different cultural background and was having different spiritual
beliefs.
Question #1
Professional: Hi, Mrs. Morris, How can I help you?
Patient: my diabetes and osteoarthritis are giving me very hard time. I need to undertake proper
care plans so that I can overcome such suffering. However, I prefer spiritual healing method
rather than western healthcare that my son is forcing to take.