title: Screening patient spirituality and spiritual needs in oncology nursing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To select 2 appropriate spiritual assessment tools and evaluate these by involving oncology nurses.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Spirituality is recognized as an important domain of cancer care. At admission, integration of spiritual assessment seems necessary. It is unclear what kind of spiritual assessment method would be most preferable.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study has an explorative and qualitative design.
  
  
  METHODS
  Spiritual assessment tools were identified by means of a systematic literature search. Two tools were selected by a 4-step selection procedure. Evaluation of these tools took place by interviewing Dutch oncology nurses (n = 8). The interviews were qualitatively analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 120 assessment tools collected, the Spiritual Health Inventory tool and the Spiritual History tool remained for further evaluation. The 8 oncology nurses did not have a unifying opinion on spiritual assessment in general, but they all agreed that in nursing practice a structural integration of spiritual assessment is lacking. The nurses preferred the use of the Spiritual Health tool for its "checklist like" approach. It seems that this tool gives them a concrete procedure to follow.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The diversity of operationalizing spirituality is reflected in the amount of collected tools. By choosing an assessment tool, cultural related aspects should be taken in consideration.
authors.affiliation: Lectorate Healthcare and Spirituality, Faculty of Health Care, Reformed University for Applied Sciences, Zwolle (Drs van Leeuwen and Schep-Akkerman); and Department of Medical Oncology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, and Department of Medical Oncology, University Medical Centre Nijmegen, Nijmegen (Dr van Laarhoven), The Netherlands.
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van Leeuwen
authors.forename: Annemiek
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schep-Akkerman
authors.forename: Hanneke W M
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: van Laarhoven
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D009859:Oncology Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D029181:Spirituality