Spiritual Assessment Tool Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Spiritual Assessment Tool - Research Paper Example This can lead to many doctors not addressing patients’ spiritual needs effectively enough during general consultation and practice, as well as in specific circumstances. To combat this, a number of spiritual assessment tools have sprung up, hoping to bridge the gap between patients and health care providers in this respect. This essay will analyze and evaluate the ease of use and comprehensiveness of data collected of two different spiritual assessment tools, the FICA tool and the HOPE tool. Spiritual assessment tools are simply something that is supposed to aid a health care provider in gathering any information that may make the patient more comfortable, happy and able to recover. They tend to be a guide to the kind of questions a health care provider could be asking, and as such tend to have a somewhat un-methodological approach. Both the FICA and the HOPE tools are pneumonic devices that are supposed to give a health care provider touchstone ideas that they should inquire about when dealing with a patient. They have some basic similarities and differences in terms of ease of use. The similarities in ease of use have to do with the fact that both assessment tools are based on the same foundation: a pneumonic device intended to remind a health care provider what questions they may want to ask a patient. ... ts a relatively high ease of use, as any information gathered will be of some use to the health care provider and there is no need for an exhaustive questionnaire that could be both awkward and not apply to everyone, causing issues of oppression and exclusivity as well as not giving accurate information. The overall ease of use of both assessment tools is rather high. Though the main structure of both assessment tools is relatively similar, and their overall ease of use is relatively high, there are some major differences between the two tests. One of the most noticeable differences is utility of the pneumonic device. The whole purpose of a pneumonic device is to aid in remembering the steps to use, but the HOPE acronym tends to not necessarily connect to the idea in the best possible manner. The â€Å"H† for instance, can stand for hope, but the health care provider will also need to consider sources of meaning, comfort, strength, peace, love and connection (Anandarajah, 2001 ). Furthermore, P stands for the P in â€Å"personal spirituality† or â€Å"practices,† so is not necessarily connected to the most important word (spirituality) and the E stands for â€Å"effects of medical care† and â€Å"end of life issues,† again, not necessarily connecting the most accessible idea (Anandarajah, 2001). HOPE sacrifices a good deal of its memory-assistance to have a good pneumonic device. FICA takes the opposite approach. While HOPE is a pneumonic device that is obviously and integrally related to the idea of spirituality and healing, but whose individual letters do not necessarily fit with the ideas and concepts as well, FICA is a nonsense word with no connection to spirituality and healing, but has individual letters that fit very well with the ideas and concepts. In FICA, the F