After the Spiritual Assessment

Chaplains’ perspectives on standardizing spiritual assessments.

“…Integrating mental health treatment between chaplaincy and behavioral health disciplines within the VHA may be key to effectively and comprehensively addressing certain veteran mental health concerns. Spiritual assessments are a unique service provided by VHA chaplains (Vance & Kopacz, 2016). Spiritual assessments are defined in VHA as an “ongoing evaluation administered by a chaplain, with voluntary participation from the Veteran, that uses standardized questions to gather information and define the Veteran’s desires, needs, hopes, spiritual resources, and spiritual injuries for the purposes of care planning” (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2021).…”

“…Chaplains have been identified as an integral part of mental health treatment and in 2010, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and Department of Defense (DoD) developed the Integrated Mental Health Strategy to focus on integrating chaplains into veterans' mental health treatment (Nieuwsma et al, 2017). Chaplains have been described as a "frontline" service provider for mental health concerns of veterans Spiritual assessments are a unique service provided by VHA chaplains (Vance & Kopacz, 2016). Spiritual assessments are defined in VHA as an "ongoing evaluation administered by a chaplain, with voluntary participation from the Veteran, that uses standardized questions to gather information and define the Veteran's desires, needs, hopes, spiritual resources, and spiritual injuries for the purposes of care planning" (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2021).…”