| Description |
Spirituality has historically had a place in health and healing. Researchers have documented numerous health benefits that are associated with spiritual health: lower incidence of cancer, better outcomes from cancer treatments, lower blood pressure, improved cardiac outcomes, better quality of life, better coping skills, and decreased depression, to name a few. Spirituality is unique to each individual, thus it can be difficult to define. Spirituality for this project will include anything that gives purpose or meaning to life, that fosters a connection to something greater, or that motivates a person to pursue honorable virtues (Borneman, et al., 2011; McKee & Chappel, 1992). Despite the documented benefits, spiritual assessment is not routinely part of health care. Barriers to spirituality assessment include providers' discomfort discussing spirituality and fear of "pushing" religion, a thought that patients do not want to discuss it, lack of spiritual training, and lack of spirituality tools (Barnett & Fortin, 2006). Spirituality is making its way back into health care. Prior to 1990, there was little research on spirituality and health. Since then, researchers have documented the overall health benefits that are associated with spiritual health as mentioned above (Borneman, et al., 2011; Campbell, et al., 2010; Daaleman & Frey, 2004; Daaleman & Kaufman, 2006; Speck, 2005). Perhaps the most studied tool to assess spirituality is the FICA tool created by Christina Puchalski. The FICA tool is an acronym for Faith, Importance/Influence, Community, and Address in care to guide health care providers' assessment of spirituality. The purpose of this project is to improve health care by improving spirituality assessment using the FICA tool. To accomplish this, I attended a conference where the topic of spirituality in health was addressed. The conference was very relevant, beneficial, and gave a good introduction into this topic. Next, I provided education to one family practice clinic on spirituality and the FICA tool, along with a question and answer session. A list of local churches was created along with suggestions on improving spiritual health and given to the clinic as a resource for them to assist patients seeking spiritual support. This discussion was well received and appreciated by the clinic. To further disseminate awareness of spirituality in health, a manuscript was submitted to the Intermountain Healthcare newsletter, Intermountain Stories. Publication of this manuscript is still pending. |
