Teaching spirituality to nurse practitioner students: the importance of the interconnection of mind, body, and spirit.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the author's experience in locating and implementing a spiritual assessment tool in teaching a first semester clinical nurse practitioner (NP) course.


METHODS
Selected articles and responses of NP students to the use of the tool.


CONCLUSIONS
A spiritual assessment is an important component of a comprehensive health assessment. The use of a formal structured protocol provides a framework for beginning students to become comfortable with sprirituality and spiritual assessments and to begin to recognize spiritual distress in clients.


CONCLUSIONS
The protocol used in the course is very extensive and might not be practical in a busy practice setting. An alternative, 4-point assessment is provided.
Maddox
M
M
University of Scranton, Scranton, PA, USA. maddoxm2@UofS.edu
D003479:Curriculum; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008487:Medical History Taking; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000193:education*; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000592:standards; D011603:Psychophysiology; D012068:Religion and Medicine