Native Americans and Brief Spiritual Assessment: Examining and Operationalizing the Joint Commission's Assessment Framework

Keywords

American Indians; cultural competency; Joint Commission; Native Americans; spirituality

Abstract

At the turn of the century, the Joint Commission—the nation's largest health care accrediting organization—began requiring spiritual assessments in hospitals and many other mental health settings frequented by Native Americans. Despite high levels of service use, culturally unique forms of spirituality, and a history of oppression in mainstream settings, no research has explored how to best implement this new requirement with Native Americans. Accordingly, this mixed-method study asked recognized experts in Native American culture (N = 50) to identify the degree of cultural consistency, strengths, and limitations of the new assessment framework and a culturally valid question protocol to operationalize the requirements. The results indicate that the framework is moderately consistent with Native American culture, and a number of practice-oriented suggestions and tools are offered to implement the requirements in a culturally valid manner.

Original Publication Citation

Hodge, D., & Limb, G. (2010). Native Americans and brief spiritual assessment: Examining and operationalizing the Joint Commission’s assessment framework. Social Work, 55(4), 297-307.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2010-10

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/5894

Publisher

Social Work

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Social Work

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

Link to Full Text

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