NUR 590 Discussion: Role of Spirituality in Health Care Essay
Based on the required topic study materials, write a reflection about worldview and
respond to the following: 1. In 250-300 words, explain the Christian perspective of the nature of spirituality and ethics in contrast to the perspective of postmodern relativism within health care.
2. In 250-300 words, explain what scientism is and describe two of the main arguments against it.
3. In 750-1,000 words, answer each of the worldview questions according to your own personal perspective and worldview: (a) What is ultimate reality? (b) What is the nature of the universe? (c) What is a human being? (d) What is knowledge? (e) What is your basis of ethics? (f) What is the purpose of your existence?
Remember to support your reflection with the topic study materials.
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
Readings
The Role of Spirituality in Health Care=
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305900/
Scientism
=https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-religion/what-scientism http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305900/
https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-religion/what-scientism The role of spirituality in healthcare was the article I found interesting. The article was geared toward Physicians but I think all healthcare should incorporate this approach. To start understanding and practicing compassion healthcare providers should:Practicing compassionate presence—i.e., being fully present and attentive to their patients and being supportive to them in all of their suffering: physical, emotional, and spiritual Listening to patients’ fears, hopes, pain, and dreams Obtaining a spiritual history
Being attentive to all dimensions of patients and their families: body, mind, and spirit Incorporating spiritual practices as appropriate Involving chaplains as members of the interdisciplinary health care team (Puchalski,2001)
Spirituality can be an important element in the way patients face chronic illness, suffering, and loss. Healthcare providers need to address and be attentive to all suffering of their patients—physical, emotional, and spiritual. Doing so is part of the delivery of compassionate care. I think we can be better healthcare providers and true partners in our patients’ living and in their dying if we can be compassionate: if we truly listen to their hopes, their fears, and their beliefs and incorporate these beliefs into their therapeutic plans (Puchalski, 2001).
Showing compassion and understanding develops a level of trust in our patients that will take the level of care to another level. Engaging our patients in a feeling of complete acceptance and developing a partnership that is otherwise impossible.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed types and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations,triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting a hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
Spiritual Needs Assessment Role In Health Care
Despite the professional awareness of the importance of spiritual needs assessment in medicine, it can often be overlooked by medical employees. The information acquired during the assessment can be instrumental in understanding the spiritual worldview of the patient as well as providing better efforts of support and care.
Moreover, spiritual assessment can help health care staff to find out whether the patient has any unresolved concerns or needs in terms of spirituality. The process of the treatment and coping psychologically can be complicated when a patient is experiencing spiritual distress (Richards, n.d., p.1).
Interview
Interviewer: Hello, how are you doing? Would you mind if I ask some questions about your faith background?
Patient: Hello, I’m fine, thanks. Sure, ask away. What do you want to know?
Interviewer: Do you have any spiritual beliefs that help you with daily struggles like stress or depression?
Patient: I’m afraid I do not. I wish I had some belief in me that will fuel my constant struggles, but I just see no point in them.
Interviewer: I understand. Apart from religious beliefs, what are your sources of comfort and peace?
Patient: I find comfort in my friends and family as they are always ready to support me and do anything in their power to make me happy. I’ve had health problems all my life and was constantly in-and-out of hospitals, but they were always nearby and took care of me.
Interviewer: As you do not have any specific spiritual or faith preferences, is there a way in which any member of the medical staff or I can offer you support?
Patient: To be honest, I would like to be treated like a grown-up. I don’t need nurses or other caretakers to come up to check on me constantly. I’m fine by myself, but when I need help, I ask for it, it is that simple.
Interviewer: How would you like me to address the issues discussed in this interview in your treatment?
Patient: I would like you to understand that I am just a person who needs some medical treatment regardless of my religious beliefs or the lack of them. Thank you for your questions.
Analysis
The person interviewed was a nineteen-year-old American male who seemed to have no interest in any spiritual beliefs and answered the questions pretty quickly and without any emotions. The successful part of the interview was the fact that the patient was willing to share his experiences and did not get offended by the questions he simply told everything the way it was. In future interviews, it would be better to adapt the questions to the personality of the patient so that everything goes smoothly.
The main challenge in completing the assessment tool lay in the fact that the patient had no spiritual background, and the majority of questions in the assessment tool are targeted towards discussing religious views. In the future, a bigger set of questions should be composed, including religion-related and unrelated to religion questions. The patient opened with his problems and talked about his family, which was the most pleasant experience.
This allowed an understanding that the patient has big support from his background, and the medical staff plays a lesser role in supporting him along with the treatment. My interviewee was stressed because of the treatment and not because of any spiritual concerns. For example, he said that he had health issues all of his life but did not seek any comfort in religion; his family supported him no matter what.
Despite the fact that the interviewee had no religious beliefs, it is important, so say a few words about the Spiritual Needs Assessment, as other patients may be of different religions and have different spiritual backgrounds. The Joint Commission requires health organizations to conduct a spiritual assessment as a part of the overall patient assessment.
This is done to determine how the spiritual outlook of the patient can be in the way of the treatment, care, and services provided by the health institution. At the minimum, the spiritual assessment should identify the spiritual affiliation of the patient (if any exists), as well as any other practices or beliefs important to the patient (Evaluating Your Spiritual Assessment Process, 2005, para. 3).
Assessing the spirituality of the patient and integrating their beliefs into healthcare can be beneficial in building trust in the patient-physician relationship (Eldridge, 2007, p. 51).
The most important practical outcome of the assessment can be the patient’s compliance with the lifestyle changes or therapeutic procedures recommended by the physician. Moreover, the spiritual needs assessment can also help the patient recognize some struggles that often affect their help.
Addressing these emotional or spiritual struggles may help find an effective way of healing and coping. Physicians that deal with incurable diseases in their patients may find some ways of providing comfort for their patients as well as increase their professional satisfaction (Sagul & Phelps, 2012, p. 546).
References
Eldridge, C. (2007). Meeting your patients’ spiritual needs. American Nurse Today, 2(10), 51-52. Web.
Evaluating Your Spiritual Assessment Process. (2005). Web.
Richards, S. (n.d.). Discerning Patient Needs: Spiritual Assessment Perspectives for Health Care Chaplains. Web.
Sagul, A., & Phelps, K. (2012). The Spiritual Assessment. American Family Physician,
86(6), 546-550. Web.
