Question

7. As a hospital nurse, you fully understand the importance of spirituality in your practice. During your night shift assessments, patients frequently engage you in spiritual conversations that have a definite impact on their perception of treatment. Your current patient, a 71-year-old retired nurse, will undergo bilateral, above-the-knee amputations tomorrow morning in response to her gangrenous feet.

a. Identify the spiritual needs of patients.

b. How might spiritual beliefs impact a patient’s level of health and self-care behaviors?

c. Which factors affect a patient’s spirituality?

Answer 1

a) Spiritual assessment helps to identify the spiritual needs of patients that can be met by just being there for them and focus on them intentionally. Sometimes the patients wants to pray so encourage them to do so and provide privacy to them if intended. Some needs to talk about their beliefs, listen to them and ask open ended questions like can you explain what you mean? Reflect and remember that means ask the patient to talk about their past experiences and what comforted her during that period . Help her remember the support she got from her family members and others.

b)spiritual beliefs impact a patient’s level of health and self-care behaviors in a positive way. The emotional well being is improved that further improves the quality of life.spiritual belief creates hope and faith that is very much important for any patient.

c) Religious values, ethics, personal beliefs and societal values are the factors that affect a patient’s spirituality.