Spiritual Assessment Report: Patient Interview and Tool Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of a spiritual assessment conducted using the FACT tool, focusing on a patient with poorly managed diabetes and osteoarthritis. The assessment explores the patient's cultural background, spiritual beliefs, and their impact on healthcare decisions. The report details the interview process, including questions asked and the patient's responses, highlighting the patient's preference for spiritual healing over western medicine due to her cultural background. The analysis includes what went well during the interview, areas for improvement such as overcoming cultural bias, and the challenges encountered in addressing the patient's spiritual needs. The report emphasizes the importance of cultural competency and the role of spiritual assessment tools in developing patient-centered treatment plans. The findings reveal how the patient's illness amplified her spiritual concerns and needs, leading to stress and a desire for spiritual guidance. The report concludes by underscoring the FACT tool's effectiveness in understanding patients' spiritual beliefs and integrating them into a comprehensive care plan, offering a balanced approach that combines both spiritual and western healthcare interventions to improve patient outcomes and overall well-being. The report also includes a discussion on the patient's need for spiritual leaders within her community, and the importance of acknowledging and addressing her emotional and mental stability, alongside her physical health.

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

1
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

2
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.

3
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
Question #2
Professional: what are your faiths and beliefs about spiritual healing and why are you not
comfortable with western healthcare?
Patient: I have seen my mother and grandmother to suffer from similar problems and they used
to feel well after undertaking spiritual healing process. I also want to follow their footsteps and
take the help of spiritual leaders only. I do not trust western healthcare as it had caused
amputation of foot in one of my friend.
Question #3
Professional: are you being able to access the spiritual care that you want?
Patient: I am not being able to get any contacts of such African spiritual leader and hence I
cannot seek for their service.
Question #4
Professional: what are acting as the conflicts that you are making you prevent taking western
healthcare and be more dependent on spiritual education?
Patient: my spiritual beliefs say that I am suffering because I might have conducted certain sins
and therefore the god is punishing me by making me suffer through the disorders. The western
healthcare professionals can never help me to establish a connection with God and help me to
apologize to him.
Question #5

4
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
Professional: do you really believe so?
Patient: Yes, I have no problem in undertaking healthcare support from western healthcare
professionals and taking medications. However, I urgently need spiritual leaders who would
worship the ancestors and spirits and ask them to provide solutions to my disorders. Such
solutions would help me to apologize to god and overcome my suffering.
Analysis:
What went well?
I was entirely calm and composed throughout the interview. My high level of self –regulation
helped me in not being annoyed, agitated, and helped me to manage the emotions of the patient.
The patient highly criticized the western healthcare system, even her frustration came out
through her anger, and she started shouting. Although I felt disappointed, I did not react
negatively. Instead, I applied effective communication skills to bring the situation under control.
Respecting dignity and authority of the patient along with compassion and empathy as
communication skills helps professionals to develop trust and mutual respect among the patients
(Timmins et al., 2015). These skills therefore, helped me to establish effective therapeutic
relationship with the patient.
What to do differently in the future:
While taking the interview of the person and assessing his spiritual beliefs, I was quite
surprised at a number of times. Therefore, I was often becoming judgmental with the patient, as
I was not being able to find any scientific rationale of the beliefs of the African American female
patient. Therefore, often my facial expressions and gestures of the body were expressing my
biased attributes and thinking procedures about the spiritual beliefs of the patient. Researchers

5
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
are of the opinion cultural competency of the professionals is important to ensure that patients
feel respected. Being unbiased about cultural and spiritual traditions, preferences and inhibitions
of the patients are important to make the patient comfortable and communicate effectively
(Stewart, 2014). However, I was often being judgmental and biased and this affected my care
service to the patient. Therefore, I need to make sure that I develop high level of cultural
competence and overcome cultural biasness to provide person centered and therapeutic acre to
the patients.
Barriers and Challenges
I need to develop cultural competency as I often become judgmental and biased about
spiritual beliefs and values about patients from different backgrounds. I need to overcome these
barriers for establishing effective relationship with patients that would be based on trust and
respect.
How to address challenges and changes that are necessary
I would be joining training sessions provided by stalwart professionals in the healthcare
domains on development of cultural competency. I would also undertake reflective practices as
this would help me to identify the weakness and develop the skills to provide effective care. I
would also discuss with my mentor about the issue and work according to his guidance.
Spiritual experiences:
I was initially judgmental about the spiritual beliefs of the patient that mainly relied on
worshipping spirits and seeking advice from dead ancestors. I could not relate the rationale of
their beliefs with healthcare issues faced by the patient. However, I was quite with the dedication
and the trust they had developed with their traditional cultures and spiritual beliefs of the land.
Gradually, I tried to analyze her situation from her point of view and this helped me to

6
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
understand that her spiritual beliefs are intricately associated with her emotional health.
Therefore, I realized that I order to ensure her emotional stability, her spiritual requirements need
to be taken care and accordingly I helped her with the references of experts who provide
traditional a healthcare according to African culture in the community.
Tools ability to meet needs of the patient
The four components of the tool helped me to identify the spiritual faith and belief of the
patient and understand whether she was being able to access the spiritual community to fulfill
her spiritual needs and requirements. Moreover, it also helped me to realize that her spiritual
beliefs were contradicting her thoughts of undertaking help of western medication, as she was
confused and could not understand what kind of interventions she would undertake. This helped
me to develop a treatment plan for her that would be based on amalgamation of western
healthcare interventions along with African spiritual healthcare regimens. This tool helped to
identify the specific needs of the patient in the spiritual domain as well as healthcare domain and
hence helped to understand that aspects that would ensure emotional and mental stability
(Hodge, 2015).
How did the illness and stress amplify the spiritual concerns and needs of interviewee?
The patient was suffering from unmanaged diabetes and osteoarthritis and was having
very poor quality life. Her son forced her to take help from western healthcare while she is keen
on taking help from spiritual healers of African origin. Therefore, she was quite stressed, as she
could not understand what decisions she would be taking to develop the conditions of her health.
She was also not being able to locate any spiritual leaders of African origin and was feeling
helpless as well. She believed that she might have sinned and that had resulted of the God being

7
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
disappointed on her making her suffer more. All these beliefs were giving her a stressful time in
relation to her physical suffering.
Conclusion:
FACT spiritual assessment tool helps understanding the spiritual beliefs and requirements
of the patients and thereby help in developing treatment plans for the patient. This tool helped to
identify that the African American patient was tore apart between undertaking western healthcare
treatment of spiritual treatment. She had a strong belief that she has sinned and therefore, the
disorders are curse from god. Therefore, she needed help of spiritual leaders who would talk with
spirits and help her. It was effectively identified that her spiritual beliefs were creating stress for
her and made her concerned about her fate. Therefore, depending on the spiritual needs, proper
references of spiritual leaders in her community had been provided and along with it, western
healthcare interventions were also proposed. She was encouraged to carry on both spiritual and
western treatment for betterment of her health.

8
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
References:
Gomez-Castillo, B. J., Hirsch, R., Groninger, H., Baker, K., Cheng, M. J., Phillips, J., ... &
Berger, A. M. (2015). Increasing the number of outpatients receiving spiritual
assessment: a pain and palliative care service quality improvement project. Journal of
pain and symptom management, 50(5), 724-729.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.05.012
Gonçalves, L. M., Osório, I. H. S., Oliveira, L. L., Simonetti, L. R., dos Reis, E., & Lucchetti, G.
(2016). Learning from listening: helping healthcare students to understand spiritual
assessment in clinical practice. Journal of religion and health, 55(3), 986-999.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-015-0146-y
Hodge, D. R. (2015). Administering a two‐stage spiritual assessment in healthcare settings: a
necessary component of ethical and effective care. Journal of nursing
management, 23(1), 27-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12078
LaRocca-Pitts, M. (2012). FACT, A Chaplain's Tool for Assessing Spiritual Needs in an Acute
Care Setting. Chaplaincy Today, 28(1), 25-32. Retrieved
from http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=a9h&AN=76285077&site=eds-live&scope=site
LaRocca-Pitts, M. (2015). Four FACTs Spiritual Assessment Tool. Journal of health care
chaplaincy, 21(2), 51-59. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2015.1015303

9
SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT
Stewart, M. (2014). Spiritual assessment: A patient-centered approach to oncology social work
practice. Social work in health care, 53(1), 59-73.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00981389.2013.834033
Timmins, F., Murphy, M., Neill, F., Begley, T., & Sheaf, G. (2015). An exploration of the extent
of inclusion of spirituality and spiritual care concepts in core nursing textbooks. Nurse
education today, 35(1), 277-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.05.008