Spiritual Belief - Essay Example

?Spiritual Assessment Introduction Spiritual belief is an integral aspect of human life. By owning a spiritual inclination, one adheres to the cultural and social norms that help hold the societal fabric. Religions provide a series of dictates that help develop peaceful and cohesive societies. In patience recovery, faith is important in contributing to the beliefs of the individual thus their ability to recover. The spiritual needs assessment of a relative to a patient helped reveal several demographic factors that may help devise proper psychological therapies for the patient thereby resulting in faster recovery. The assessment revealed that the patient had ardent faith in the Christian faith and was a staunch catholic. His beliefs were founded in the teachings of the Roman Catholic and so was his family’s. As a Christian ascribing to the doctrines of the faith, the respondent neither drinks nor smokes. Additionally, he portrays a social and loving personality often assisting those he interacts with whenever possible thus validating his support for the patient. The patient portrayed strong belief in the teachings of the faith thereby opting to live as per the demands of the Catholic Church. From the assessment, it became evident that one’s spiritual beliefs are important in determining their subsequent personalities. Religious beliefs contribute to the development of a personality within an individual as the interview portrayed. Most of the questions in the assessment tool sought to investigate the relationship between the faith and the social life of the individual. The respondent’s responses revealed a close relationship with the faith greatly influencing the social lives of the respondent (Reilly, 2011). Since the respondent is a catholic and that, the catholic teachings abhor alcoholism and cigarette. The respondent thus selects his social groupings carefully always avoiding smoker ad alcoholics. His religious beliefs thus influence the type of respondent’s lifestyle, such toxic substances as alcohol and cigarette affect health. By avoiding such for whichever reasons, one reduces chances of infections (Manent, 2011). Religious beliefs and the degree of beliefs in the teachings of a faith is a key factor that helps influence the type of lifestyle an individual leads. In this relation, religious beliefs thus influence the propensity of an individual being susceptible to certain lifestyle diseases such as those caused by alcohol, cigarettes and other religious contrabands. The assessment went well thereby revealing several important factors of religion that affect the health of an individual. Just as stated earlier, religion influences the relationship among people. The respondent’s belief in his faith that discourages discrimination resulted in an objective interaction between the respondent and the interviewer. The interaction was free and extremely interactive with the respondent opting to take the opportunity to pass some of his teachings to the respondent. The personal interaction between the respondent and the interviewer portrayed advanced development and maturity thereby leading to free flow of information from both sides. Such thereby contributed to the effectiveness of the study, which revealed several important facts about the relationship between religious belief, and lifestyle that is an important determinant of lifestyle diseases. Besides the personal relations between the respondent and the interviewer, communication between the two was effective a factor contributed to by several factors. The effectiveness of the interview ensured that the interviewee responded to all the questions and exhibited sincerity that improved the effectiveness of the study. The respondent owing to his inclination to his faith committed to the study and provided detailed answers to the questions in the tool. The free flow of information between the two permitted the respondent to provide examples of some of the issues he raised thereby developing factual relationship between faith and the development of lifestyles thus the susceptibility to diseases. However, the study also revealed several factors about the study that contributed to te minimal ineffectiveness of the study which the respondent will have to change in subsequent surveys. Such included the open-ended questions that the interviewer employed. Such permitted the free spirited respondent to talk endlessly thus consuming a lot of time. Open-ended questions are effective in soliciting respondent’s responses thereby succeeding in revealing the respondent’s true feelings on a particular issue. Nevertheless, as the study revealed, they require an amount of monitoring to ensure that the free speech by the respondent is maintained to the relevant and most objective aspects of the study. The respondent took advantage of the open-ended questions to degenerate the discussion into a social meeting in which he tried to teach the respondent about his faith all of which were irrelevant to the study thus wasting time. The interaction between the respondent and the interviewer had several barriers that will also require considerations in future studies. Key among these was communication barriers such as language. The respondent and the respondent had relative abilities in the language, which the interviewer used in the study. The interviewer used structured questions in questionnaires. The questionnaire guided the interviewer to the questions but he used vocabulary and jargons in constructing the interview. Such placed integral barriers, which nearly jeopardized the session. It compelled the interviewer to interpret the questions in simpler languages to prevent the respondent from answering the questions irrelevantly. The interviewer controls the interaction and should always use simple sentence constructed with simple words, which help the respondent to understand the questions more effectively. These help eliminate the semantic barriers that witnessed in the interaction. Another barrier to the interaction was the different social lives of the two. The respondent often used examples with which the interviewer was not familiar. This was another great hindrance to the communication process possibly affecting the effectiveness of the study. However, the interviewer often asked for clarification and simpler explanations of the examples. The two should sue simply structured sentences and simple daily examples, which facilitate their understanding of the concept under discussion. From the spiritual assessment, it became evident that religious belief is an important determinant of the people’s lifestyles. Religious have an effective way of seeking adherence from people since it addresses important issues that define life. Religion provides answers to some of the pertinent issues that affect humanity. Religious beliefs coerce compliance with its dictates by proving both reward for compliance and reproach for defiance. This way, religion has succeeded in developing the social norms and virtues that define social structures in societies. Such religions as Christian and Islam among others promote positive features of social belongingness most of which influence lifestyles. Religion therefore influences the propensity of lifestyle diseases that affect people in a society as exhibited by the respondent in the study. Additionally, religion influences the development of personalities in people thereby influencing the relationship between a nurse and different patients (Said, 2002). References Manent, P. (2011). The greatnes and misery of liberalism. Wilmington, Del: ISI Books. Reilly, R. (2011). The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis. Wilmington, Del: ISI Books. Said, E. (2002). The Clsash of ifnorance. New York: OUP. Read More