Spiritual Needs Assessment: 40 y/o Christian Man with HIV and Cancer

SPIRITUAL NEEDS ASSESSMENT
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Part I: Interview
1 Q: How has your condition impacted on both you and your loved ones?
A: The diagnosis hit hard on both him and his close family members, as well as his friends.
2 Q: What provides you with strength as well as hope in your daily life?
A: First is my family. Every time I sit down and remember that they are always there for me gives me strength and hope. Second is the church. I often feel some renewed hope has been pumped into me, each time I go for fellowships.
3 Q: What do you understand by the term suffering?
A: From my own experiences, suffering means many things. It means the inability to do the simple things that I have been doing for myself over the past years when I had the energy. It means having to stay grounded, either within the confines of my house or my room, in pain. It also means the silent stigma I always experience from some of my immediate neighbors who know about my condition.
4 Q: Are there times in your life, when you lose faith?
A: Yes. There are a few instances when I do so. All these instances revolve around the thought that sometimes science is more effective than prayers. This is especially so when it comes to the handling of my physical problems. I, therefore, tend to clearly distinguish between matters that need spirituality and those that need exact solutions.
5 Q: Do you usually relate any of your successes and failures to your religious beliefs?
A: Yes. I believe that most of the good things and the few bad ones happening in my life are solely due to what my Creator has in store for me. It is all part of God’s plan for me.
Part II: Analysis
Personal beliefs and spirituality in general usually dictate quite a lot when it comes to the overall health and lifestyle of a person. In day to day routine, one always comes about people from various backgrounds, cultures, belief systems, and hence different religions. There are some people, or patients, especially those with very chronic diseases or the elderly, who usually suffer from various degrees of distress and stress to the extent that it can even interfere with their spirituality. To assess the levels of distress amongst these individuals, the spiritual distress assessment tool comes in handy (Monod et al.,2012).
The interviewee, in this case, was a 40-year old Christian man, with HIV and cancer. These two diseases have been afflicting people across the globe for quite a while, and the latter’s prevalence has rapidly increased over the past de...