Spiritual Assessment

According to Taylor (2002), spiritual awareness is important for a nurse or a nursing student if he or she wants to be effective in healing or as a provider of spiritual care. This is because religious and spiritual dimensions of life influences the lives of many people (Wong, Hockenberry, Wilson, Perry, & Lowdermilk, 2006). By assessing the spiritual aspects of patients and families, nurses strive to meet the spiritual needs of individuals, which provide strength through holistic nursing care (Wong et al., 2007). Therefore, spiritual assessments are an important component in nursing practice.

Spiritual assessments can be measured in different ways. For the author, the tool used to assess the spirituality of the author’s patient was H.O.P.E. According to Blonna (2007), H.O.P.E. is an acronym to “describe an instrument with a series of questions” (p. 109) that can be used to “assess the role of spirituality in a person’s life for the purpose of minimizing spiritual distress” (p. 109). The author chose this method because the process involves asking four, easy to remember, open-ended questions. H.O.P.E. consists of asking what is the patient’s source of hope, strength, comfort and peace; if the patient is involved with a particular religion; what is the patient’s personal spiritual beliefs and practices and if they have a relationship with God; and how the patient’s spiritual beliefs affect their medical care (Blonna, 2007). By asking these questions, the author was able to receive an overall understanding of the patient’s religion, beliefs, values, and culture. In addition, spiritual assessments helped the author recognize which spiritual interventions were appropriate for use in the patient’s treatment (Blonna, 2007). Through the process of assessing spirituality, the author is able to provide patients with the utmost respect for their cultural and religious beliefs and values. This is important because without asking questions and being prepared, the author would not be able to identify, provide, and respect the expectations and wishes of my patients and their families.

Having been assigned a 9 year-old female two weeks ago, the author decided to assess the patient’s spirituality by speaking with the mother. In response to H.O.P.E.’s four questions, the author was able to acknowledge that