FACT: taking a spiritual history in a clinical setting.
Healthcare clinicians need a good tool for taking spiritual histories in a clinical setting. A spiritual history provides important clinical information and any properly trained clinician can take one. Professionally trained chaplains follow-up with more in-depth spiritual assessments if indicated. A spiritual history tool's effectiveness depends on five criteria: brevity, memorability, appropriateness, patient-centeredness, and credibility (Koenig, 2007). The chaplain-developed FACT stands for: F-Faith (and/or Belief); A-Active (and/or Available, Accessible, Applicable); C-Coping (and/or Comfort)/Conflict (and/or Concern); and T-Treatment. FACT compares favorably, if not better in some categories, with three physician-developed spiritual history tools: Koenig's (2007) CSI-MEMO, American College of Physicians' tool (Lo, Quill, & Tulsky, 1999), and Puchalski's and Romer's (2000) FICA.
Athens Regional Medical Center, Athens, Georgia 30606, USA. marklp@armc.org
Mark A
MA
Larocca-Pitts
D002977:Clergy; D006268:Health Facilities; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D029181:Spirituality