Assessing Spiritual Well-Being in Residential Aged Care: An Exploratory Review

With the emerging incorporation of spiritual care into the allied health stream, there is a need for a clear and validated process of spiritual review that can be understood across multidisciplinary teams. The aim and purpose of this paper was to critically review the literature regarding spiritual screening, history-taking and assessment, and explore the merits of developing a brief instrument focussed on assessing and improving the spiritual well-being of consumers within residential aged care. Following an exploratory review of the literature, the results indicate that effective processes are noted regarding the triage and identification of the needs and spiritual assessment of consumers; however, many of these tools are overly religious in content, unwieldy in size, or not specifically aimed at identifying the immediate crisis confronting the consumer. It is recommended that an assessment instrument be developed which is communicable across all allied health practitioners (including spiritual carers), which may contribute towards a taxonomy of common consumer conditions, and which will enable the development and delivery of more targeted care plans.