Catholic Patients Spiritual Needs Assessment

Interview

Interviewer (I): Hello! I would like to ask you several questions concerning your spiritual beliefs, if thats okay.

Respondent (R): Yes, surely. Go ahead.

I: How do you define your faith?

R: Im a Catholic my entire family is. Going to church on Sunday is an important ritual for me.

I: Do you think that disease is a punishment for sins?

R: Its an overly simplified statement, but, in essence, yes.

I: Do you feel that nurses meet your spiritual needs fully?

R: It depends, actually. They never make fun of my beliefs and treat them with respect. However, there have been a few instances when a therapist or a nurse dismissed my spiritual concerns under the pretext that they are irrelevant.

I: How do you wish that modern healthcare services represented your interests as a Christian believer?

R: Yes, for the most part, doctors and nurses understand my needs as a Catholic. For example, they understand the sacredness of life and the importance of compassion. However, I have witnessed the situations when nurses lacked a certain sense of& commitment, if you will, and also empathy.

I: How so?

R: Well, there was a case when I asked a nurse to give me more detailed instructions about the medicine the doctor prescribed, but he just said abruptly that I could read everything in the instructions.

I: That was absolutely unacceptable. Did you complain about it to the manager of the facility?

R: No, I did not want to make a big drama.

I: I am sorry about your experience. Do you have any suggestions about improving the healthcare services?

R (smiling): Compassion is the key. Thats all, I guess.

I: Thank you for your participation in the interview. It was a pleasure talking to you.

R: You are welcome!

I: Have a nice day!

R: You too!

End of the transcript.

Analysis

Exploring the spiritual needs of community members is a critical step toward addressing some of the current problems with healthcare services. Specifically, the issues linked to the management of patients needs and especially the efficient communication between a patient and a nurse can be revealed in the course of an interview. In the case under analysis, a 45-year-old Catholic woman from a White American descent was interviewed. According to the results of the interview, there is a strong necessity to introduce the framework that would help establish a stronger rapport between nurses and Catholic community members by educating nurses about the essential Christian values. Specifically, the qualities such as empathy and compassion should be fostered in nurses in order to maintain the nurse=-patient dialogue consistent and avoid misunderstandings.

The goal of the interview was to locate the aspects of care with which the target demographic was dissatisfied and identify the methods of improving the nursing services. The outcomes of the interview can be interpreted as partially satisfactory since the key information was retrieved, yet further clarifications would be required to shape the improved model of care. Specifically, the goal of identifying the essential healthcare problem was achieved, yet the lack of trust between the patient and the healthcare representative impeded the data collection.

In the future, the specified barriers can be addressed by appealing to the participants need for spiritual connection with a nurse, particularly, the provision of compassion and the focus on the discrepancies between Christian beliefs and the current healthcare standards. An open discussion of problematic aspects seems to be the most sensible strategy to follow.

The tool designed for data collection and supposed to establish a rapport between an interviewer and a respondent will assist me in the future since, after being improved, it will open a channel for patient-nurse dialogue. As a result, the process of mutual education will commence, with both a nurse and the Catholic community receiving critical information (Tellis-Nayak, 2016).

Specifically, nurses will be capable of subverting some of the prejudices that prevent Catholic patients from receiving healthcare support, such as the belief that a disease or a disorder is necessarily a kind of punishment for sin. In turn, nurses will be able to understand the line of reasoning behind the choices that Catholic patients make when facing a specific health dilemma or being presented with health-related information (Krause & Boldt, 2017). As a result, a gradual improvement in the number of recovery cases will be observed.

In the course of the interview, it was discovered that the patient viewed diseases not necessarily as a natural state of being but, rather, a repercussion for a specific behavior. Therefore, illness and stress are correlated with the spiritual concern of a patient. The specified line of thinking needs to be addressed since it indirectly encourages passivity among patients and may hinder successful patient education. Moreover, it may lead to fatal outcomes in case a patient ignores a disorder by viewing it as a spiritual trial that they need to take. Thus, a program aimed at increasing the levels of patient education and nurse awareness regarding the spiritual needs of the target population is required.