Assessing Spirituality and Religious

Practices
presented by: Zyra Obana and Rona Glen
Pajares
 Conceptual Foundations

● Spirituality and religion are important factors in health and can influence
health decision and outcomes.

● Lifestyle practice, religious practice, dietary beliefs, and many aspects of

religion and spirituality affect health.

● Religious practices and affiliation around the world vary, as they do within
the United States due to the number of immigrant from cultures around the
world in addition to varied cultures that have coexisted within the country
since its founding.
 Terms Related to
Spirituality

● Religion is defined as rituals, practice, and experience shared within group that
involves a search for the sacred (e.g., God, Allah etc.)

● For some faiths, idea of religion encompasses the concept of spirituality and is a
natural outflow of that idea.

● Spirituality is defined as a search for meaning and purpose in life; it seek to

understand life’s ultimate in relation to the sacred.

● Thoughts on spirituality and religion may vary immensely from one client to the
next.

● With growing proportion of the population identifying themselves as “spiritual

but not religious,” the use correct instrument or framework will determine the
accuracy of an assessment.
Religion Assessment!
is defined in terms of judgments about the
extent to which persons are applying the
tenets of their religious tradition to their
daily lives.
 difference and similarities

difference similarities
Religion is an organized, Religion and spirituality are both
community-based system of rooted in trying to understand the
beliefs, while spirituality resides meaning of life and, in some cases,
within the individual and what they how a relationship with a higher
personally believe. power may influence that meaning.
 Relationship between Spirituality, Religion and
Health...

Public opinion and health

care research support the
importance of the
relationship religion,
spirituality, and health Wright (2005) calls
suffering beliefs,
spirituality
analogous to three
close cousin
A person beliefs about the
cause and meaning of
suffering and pain the
illness. Suffering be it
psychological or
physical, is often
associated with
illness.
 Foundation knowledge for
spiritual assessment..

The primary purpose of a spiritual assessment is to

identify specific spiritual care needs and formulate a care
plan for patients (Power 2006, Caldeira et al 2013).
Nurses may use different methods and tools to do this,
although these have undergone limited testing (Draper
2012).
 Rituals, practiced, and experience involving a
search for the sacred (e.g., God, Allah etc.) that are
shared within the group.

— RELIGION
 characteristics

• Group Oriented
• Ritualistic
• Formal • Objective, as in easily
measurable (e.g.,
• Organized church attendance)
spirit
ualit
A search for meaning and
purpose in life, which seeks
to understand life’s ultimate
question in relationship to

y
the sacred.
 characteristics

May involve spiritual

informal and not organized experiences

self reflected Subjective, as in difficult

consistently measure (e.g.,
daily spiritual experiences,
spiritual well-being, etc.)
Spiritual Assessment
Active and outgoing
conversation that assesses the
spiritual needs of the client.
 Characteristics

formal infromal nonbiased

 spirit
ual
care
Addressing the spiritual
needs of the client as they
unfold through spiritual
assessment.
 Characteristic

client oriented

collaborative

individualistic
self understanding of
spirituality
 ask yourself!

02
How would I response to
someone in spiritual distress or
to someone requesting an
intervention retaliating to
01 spirituality?

03
What are my views on the
interaction between
spirituality and health?
how can I provide spiritual
care?
 spirit
• Spiritual care cannot be provided
without spiritual assessment
uality
• A spiritual assessment is similar to the
many others assessment nurses perform
on daily basis.
asses
• Gaining relevant information about the
client’s spirituality helps to identify
related nursing diagnosis and needed
smen
t
interventions, and can improve client
care.
 techniques!!!!

These characteristics of
Essential to taking a spiritual
spirituality can present difficulties
history or providing spiritual
in proper assessment.
care to clients maintaining an
environment that foster hope,
joy and creativity, provide a
sense that the client is value,
trusted, respected, and worthy of
dignity, assures confidentiality
The most useful spirituality and sympathetic listening gives
techniques should begin with assistance with making sense
general introductory question and finding meaning in the
and not be specific spiritual illness.
needs.
 non formal formal
in asking open-ended question and allowing the client’s spirituality and religious
the client to disclose pertinent information. can also be assessed with formal self-
They are systematic to extent that client’s assessment instrument. Completion of a
response guide future choices of question, self-response spiritual or religious
and may cover numerous practice in which assessment instrument in conjunction
the client may or may not be involved (e.g., with other past medical history could
prayer, organized, religion etc.) uncover strengths or deficiencies that
may have initially gone unnoticed
 Taking a Spiritual History!!!

S Integration with a Spiritual Implication for Medical

Community Care
Spiritual Belief System
I I

T
P R T-Terminal Events Planning
Personal Spirituality Ritualized Practice and
Restriction
 FICA Spiritual history tools!

F
faith and belief
01
C
03 community

I
importance 02
A

04 address in care
validating and documenting vindings
Validate the subject and objective
data collected during assessment.
 analysis of data:
Diagnostic Reasoning

selected nurse
diagnosis
medical problems

selected collaborative
problems
selected nurse diagnosis
 healt
h
o Readiness for enhanced spiritual well-
prom
otion
being
o Readiness for enhanced hope
•

diagn
osis
 risk
diagn
osis
o Risk for spiritual distress
o Risk for loneliness
o Risk for social isolation
actua
l o
o
Spiritual distress
Hopelessness

diagn
o Moral distress

osis
 selected collaborative
problems

 After grouping the data, certain collaborative

problems may become apparent.

 The following is a list of collaborative problems that

may be identified when assessing spiritually. These
problems are worded as risk for complication (RC),
followed by the problems.