Spirituality in the traditional sense and spirituality in the religious sense represent different concepts. While they both represent the notion of a world beyond human understanding, they differ in their explanations of what lies beyond the physical world. For a non-religious individual, spirituality is the belief in a force that controls events and processes in the physical world. For a religious individual, spirituality is the belief in an almighty, all-powerful, and all-seeing God. In essence, the belief in God’s existence differentiates spirituality between religious and non-religious people.
Asking questions related to spirituality in a healthcare setting is not a standard practice. This is because there is no scientific evidence of the medical significance of such questions. With that being said, I would be comfortable asking patients information about their spirituality. Despite its lack of any medical benefit, such information can help me offer culturally competent healthcare to my patients, capable of improving patient care and outcomes(Rachel et al., 2019).
The existence of people with varying religious and spiritual beliefs complicates the design of culturally competent healthcare systems. Culturally competent healthcare is one where the healthcare provider takes into account the patients’ social, religious, and spiritual beliefs when offering healthcare services (Rachel et al., 2019). When offering healthcare services to patients with different belief systems than mine, it is imperative to accommodate their beliefs. A failure to do so could lead to poor services or the patients being dissatisfied with the care offered. For example, nurses can provide spiritual care to a religiously spiritual patient by arranging a visit to the hospital of the patient’s spiritual leader if a patient or their relatives request such a visit. Another example of a nurse offering care to a spiritual patient but one who is not religious by allowing them to express their spirituality.
References
Rachel, H., Chiara, C., Robert, K., & Francesco, S. (2019). Spiritual care in nursing: an overview of the measures used to assess spiritual care providers and related factors amongst nurses.Journal of the Society of Medicine and Natural Sciences, 90, 1–18. Web.