Older Adults’ Spiritual Needs in Health Care Settings

Abstract

Recognizing that spiritual needs often emerge in health care settings, the Joint Commission requires spiritual assessments in numerous organizations frequented by older adults. Given that many gerontological practitioners have received little training in identifying spiritual needs, a qualitative meta-synthesis (N = 9 studies) was conducted to identify and describe older adults' perceptions of their spiritual needs in health care settings. Five interrelated categories emerged: (a) spiritual practices; (b) relationship with God; (c) hope, meaning, and purpose; (d) interpersonal connection; and (e) professional staff interactions. The implications of the findings are discussed as they inform the spiritual assessment process.

A systematic review and critical appraisal of qualitative metasynthetic practice in public health to develop a taxonomy of operations of reciprocal translation

“…Three metasyntheses were returned uniquely by Embase (Agudelo‐Suarez et al, ; Cook et al, ; Heaton et al, ). Eight metasyntheses (Birnbaum and Saini, ; Cohen and Collens, ; Corcoran et al, ; Dillon et al, ; Gill and Fox, ; Hodge et al, ; Malpass et al, ; York and Wiseman, ) were returned uniquely by PsycINFO.…”

“…For example, two metasyntheses (Hodge et al, ; Lawrence et al, ) used a constant comparative approach (Glaser and Strauss, ), traditionally identified with grounded theory, to analyse themes. This resulted in identification of meaningful clusters of themes and relationships within those clusters of themes and, finally, the identification of the emergent third‐order constructs that formed the basis of the final metasynthesis.…”

“…Hodge and colleagues (, p. 138) also described a process that used ‘categories’, or themes provided by included studies, as a starting point to ‘posit relationships across studies’ and examine how ‘new relationships emerge as similar units of meaning are identified across studies’. As the outcome of their metasynthesis of qualitative studies on the spiritual needs of older adults, five key spiritual needs (e.g.…”

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

“…Qualitative studies with samples primarily comprised of both African Americans (Conner & Eller, 2004;Taylor et al, 2007) and European Americans (Hodge et al, 2012) have highlighted the importance of front line medical personnel in meeting clients' spiritual needs. Nurses (Nixon & Narayanasamy, 2010) and physicians (Ellis & Campbell, 2004) play a particularly prominent role in service delivery.…”

“…Some common needs among African Americans include treatment decisions related to euthanasia, life-sustaining treatments, and advance directives (Johnson et al, 2005). In keeping with their specialized knowledge in these and similar areas, physicians, nurses, staff members administering tests, and discharge planners can play an important role responding to clients' spiritual needs in this area through their attitudes and interactions (Cavendish et al, 2006;Hodge, Horvath, Larkin, & Curl, 2012).…”