Failure to Address African Americans’ Spiritual Needs During Hospitalization: Identifying Predictors of Dissatisfaction Across the Arc of Service Provision

Abstract

Using a national sample of recently hospitalized older African Americans (N = 2,227), this study identified predictors of dissatisfaction with the manner in which clients' spiritual needs were addressed during hospitalization. Of 8 major areas of service provision examined, 3 were significant predictors of dissatisfaction: nurses, physicians, and the discharge process. The findings underscore the importance of collaborative efforts to address elderly Black clients' spiritual needs. Social workers, who frequently oversee the discharge process, can play an important role in addressing African Americans' spiritual needs by developing discharge plans that incorporate clients' spiritual strengths and resources into the planning process.

Spiritual Needs of Older Adults during Hospitalization: An Integrative Review

“…An exception has been made for this study due to its high relevance for older patients' spiritual needs and frequent hospitalizations. In line with this, the studies by (Hodge et al 2013(Hodge et al , 2016Hodge and Wolosin 2015) were conducted at the moment the patients were discharged from the hospital. However, the data in these studies focus on spiritual needs during their hospital stay and thus contain fruitful information.…”

“…The articles represent seven distinct studies and three similar studies. These three studies were written by the same lead author using the same research design in different subpopulations of a single national sample (Hodge et al 2013(Hodge et al , 2016Hodge and Wolosin 2015). Although these three studies were published in three different articles, they are part of the same data set.…”

“…One study focused on Muslim patients (Sönmez and Nazik 2019), one study mentioned a majority of patients with a Judeo-Christian background (Monod et al 2012), two studies included Christian patients (Mundle 2015;Ross and Austin 2015), one study included Muslim and Catholic older adults (Narayanasamy et al 2004) and one study contained a mix of different religious backgrounds such as Buddhism, Protestantism and Catholicism (Shih et al 2009). Surprisingly, four studies did not pay attention to people's religious background (Hodge et al 2013(Hodge et al , 2016Hodge and Wolosin 2015;Ramezani et al 2019).…”

“…Two studies questioned older patients at the rehabilitation unit (Monod et al 2012;Mundle 2015), two studies explored the spiritual needs of older adults at the end of life (Ross and Austin 2015;Shih et al 2009) and the majority of participants in the Turkish study had cancer or heart failure (Sönmez and Nazik 2019). In the five remaining studies, the medical background was not extensively explained (Hodge et al 2013(Hodge et al , 2016Hodge and Wolosin 2015;Narayanasamy et al 2004;Ramezani et al 2019).…”

“…In five studies participants with cognitive impairment, incomplete questionnaires, patients with severe dementia, people suffering from alcohol abuse or mental illness or unconscious patients, were excluded (Monod et al 2012;Ramezani et al 2019;Ross and Austin 2015;Shih et al 2009;Sönmez and Nazik 2019). The exclusion criteria for the other studies are mentioned briefly; namely, the exclusion of people under 65 (Hodge et al 2013(Hodge et al , 2016Hodge and Wolosin 2015;Mundle 2015;Narayanasamy et al 2004). Eight articles investigated spiritual needs exclusively through questioning older patients.…”