interview of a patient

The report includes an interview with a patient who had been hospitalized numerous times as a result of a terminal illness diagnosis. An analysis of the interview experience is also offered. The following is a tool for assessing the patient’s spiritual needs. The tool includes five questions that should be addressed during the interview, and the interviewee’s responses are also logged. The options in bold represent the interviewee’s responses.

Did you need to reflect on your life at any point when you were in the hospital?

The patient required to consider her life since she felt that her life could come to an end soon and thus the need to examine those people she could have wronged and sought reconciliation with them.

2. How important was it to you to have someone pray with or for you?

It was imperative for the patient to have someone pray for them since they felt the need for divine healing.

3. Any time you were in the hospital did you need to find meaning and purpose of your life?

The patient said that she felt the need to find meaning and purpose of her life since she felt she lived according to the will of God.

4. How important was it to you to live a moral and ethical life?

The patient felt it was essential to live a moral and ethical life since they defined the relationship between her and her God.

5. Anytime you were in the hospital did you need to talk to someone about death and to die?

The patient felt no need to discuss death with anyone since she felt there was much left undone before she ready to die.

Analysis

The patient interviewed was female in her late forties, and she was a Christian. The responses granted by the patient revealed the spiritual needs of the patient and her desire to regain health while at the hospital. The victim showed her willingness to review life while at the hospital since she felt the need to be accepted as a person while at the hospital. Many were the times she would feel lonely and wished she could have had more time to make friends who would come to pay her frequent visits. She felt that during her time in the hospital, she needed to feel the feeling of compassion and kindness extended to her friends and family members in solidarity with her ailment. Also, she felt the need to be connected to the world since her illness took all the happiness she had and she appreciated the need for her spouse to give her his companionship and love. Also, while at the hospital, the patient felt the need to have someone pray for or with her since she believed in the power of prayer to be healed and thus it was crucial for her to have someone pray for her or pray with her. The prayers also acted as a way of having a reconciliation with God and provided as an avenue to repent her sins. While at the hospital, she witnessed fellow patients kicking the bucket and thus she felt that she no exception. Therefore, she concentrated on prayer to keep her relationship with God intact. Notably, the patient attributed her full recovery to the power of God to heal through the medication she was subjected to while at the hospital.

Remarkably, while at the hospital, the patient felt the need to find meaning and purpose for her life. Having witnessed the death of fellow patients, she reflected more on the significance of life and the ultimate face of death after life. She tried to find the purpose of her life and meaning in the event of her death. She felt it as a crucial thing for her to find and determine whether she had fulfilled her purpose in life and if not, she longed to find health again with the sole purpose of finding a meaning of her life and then live according to the purpose and meaning. She also hinted that it was devastating to realize that one has not found any object and meaning of his or her life, especially when faced with death and he or she feels that she has not attained or lived according to the purpose or meaning of life. Also, she felt the need to live an ethical and moral life as they help one to face the daily challenges and struggles of life and they are the basis of a healthy spiritual life. Also, the patient felt that she was ready to discuss the topic of death with anyone since she felt that she needed to address unmet issues before her death.

The interview was a success since the respondent answered to the questioned promptly. Even though some of the problems took her time to reflect on them before answering, the interviewee was crucial in understanding some of the spiritual need of a patient. However, many challenges were encountered and prohibited the ability to complete the assessment tool. Firstly, it was difficult to create a good rapport with the patient since she initially felt uncomfortable with my presence. The troubled relationship with the patient affected the lines of communication and I felt the patient was not honest in some responses. The silence that ensued after posting a question to the patient was long, leading to the confusion whether the patient did not understand the question, or she was meditating before giving her response. To address the challenges faced during the interview in future, it is fundamental to show empathy with the patient to indicate the understanding of what she went through while at the hospital. Creating a good rapport with the patient enables them to be open and honest about their spiritual needs while at the hospital. The interviewer is at liberty to interrupt the long silence in between answering the questions and their posting. The interviewer must find out whether the silence is due to meditation or lack of understanding of the respondent to the question.

The assessment tool can be useful in providing the appropriate interventions to meet the needs of the patient since the questions asked were relevant to the objectives of the interview. The spiritual need of the patient while at the hospital need to be assessed through a careful selection of the questions to bring the aspect of trust, honesty, and effective communication between the patient and the interviewer. The issues presented in the assessment tool are easy, and straight to the point and thus the patient need not seek for further clarification and finds it easy to answer them.

I was able to discover that illness and stress amplified the spiritual concern and the need of the interviewee. She felt that sickness and suffering are caused by the evil one and thus the need to give room for the spirit of God to provide divine healing. The patient linked to disease and death and thus the feeling of being in the right relationship with the world and God. The patient also reflected on her moral and ethical standards of her life, and she felt that the two defined her spiritual life which also described her relationship with her creator. Additionally, while at the hospital, she felt the need for prayers for divine healing and a deep reflection on the purpose and meaning of her life. All these expressions of the patient indicate that the illness in her amplified her spiritual needs and concerns.

References

Bourquard, S. (2016). Spiritual Needs Assessment and Reflection. Ashland, OH: Ashland Theological Seminary.