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Assessing Spirituality for Shared Decision Making and Bioethical Conversations

July 19, 2013

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Three general principles serve as a guiding framework for clinical bioethics: respect for autonomy, beneficence, and justice (Beauchamp, Walters, Kahn & Mastroianna, 2014). Moving principles into clinical practice means that practitioners use written policy statements, education and opportunities for dialogue to obtain reasonable informed consent when striving to share decision making. When treatment goals, direction, and options are considered in conjunction with a commitment to honor one’s Christian theological worldview, it is critical for the medical spokesperson to discern and document a patient’s faith parameters, priorities, and particulars. This spiritual history groundwork is of utmost concern when wading into bioethical conversation (Greggo, 2010). This paper explores a stepwise plan that makes use of rapid assessment measures and structured/semi-structured assessment techniques to establish a common understanding of the patient’s spiritual journey (Greggo & Lawrence, 2012a; 2012b; Fisher & Corcoran, 2007). By using screening tools, surveys and structured interview questions, a clinician can formulate a spiritual history that surfaces theological commitments and faith practices. The result is a robust bio-psycho-social-spiritual platform upon which to rest bioethical conversations when treatment choice by intent is to reflect one’s faith journey. Mental health professional (MHPs) will be the practitioner role utilized to exemplify this assessment process since the presenter is a licensed psychologist. Still, the strategic techniques described are applicable to other medical settings and specialties. These techniques could apply whenever the obtainment of informed consent is necessary by nurses and other medical personal to pave the way to include Christian wisdom when making medical decisions (Greggo, 2011). The intent is to prompt MHPs, medical specialists and chaplains to adopt both standardized and non-standardized measures into customary practice to address faith concerns with greater specificity and to pursue Christian spiritual formation when pondering bioethical matters.

Keywords:
Mental health counseling, spiritual care