Spiritual Care for Patients with Different Worldviews

Spirituality is a major contributory factor to the health and well-being of individuals within the society. Spiritual well-being has been implicated in greater tolerance of emotional demands of individual illnesses, decreased pain and suffering, transcendence, and enhanced purpose and willingness to live (Anandarajah, 2005). Facilitating spiritual care among patients with spiritual beliefs is therefore necessary.

As a nurse practitioner, I will be able to put aside any differences in religious affiliations between my patients and me. Accordingly, this will enable me to execute my mandate without any biases. Additionally, I will be quick to understand my patients’ backgrounds, their cultural and religious affiliations, and their perspectives on spirituality. I will also approach each patient’s case with an open mind to understand their spiritual perspective and expectations from the care process. With these, I will be able to focus on offering compassionate care to these patients without any bias attributable to differences in cultural and spiritual affiliation.

Inadequate knowledge of different religions as well as their expectations at the point of care remains my weakness. Spirituality is a significant determinant of health-seeking behavior. Additionally, the constructs of religion often dictate health-seeking behavior among individuals and may affect their approach to care processes (Timmins & Caldeira, 2017). I am, however, willing to correct this by researching elaborately different religions, their health-seeking behavior, and how they approach care processes.

As a patient, I would want to have the final say in the event of a difficult clinical decision. However, in circumstances where I will be unable to make an informed decision, I will grant medical power of attorney to close members of my family or any caregiver present. In as much as patients reserve autonomy in clinical decision-making, medical power of attorney can be issued by the patient whenever they cannot make an informed decision.

References

Anandarajah, G. (2005). Doing a Culturally Sensitive Spiritual Assessment: Recognizing Spiritual Themes and Using the HOPE Questions. AMA Journal of Ethics, 7(5). https://doi.org/10.1001/virtualmentor.2005.7.5.cprl1-0505

Timmins, F., & Caldeira, S. (2017). Assessing the spiritual needs of patients. Nursing Standard, 31(29), 47-53. https://doi.org/10.7748/

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