# Developing and Validating a Spiritual Assessment Tool for Seriously-ill Veterans

> **NIH VA I01** · DURHAM VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · —

## Abstract

Anticipated Impact on Veteran's Healthcare: Assessment of spiritual care needs is central to
goals and mandates of palliative care, the VA and Joint Commission on Accreditation of
Healthcare Organizations. Spiritual and existential beliefs, for those religious and not, are
associated with improved quality of life, reduced suffering, and preferences for care. Yet, tools
that systematically assess need, link those needs with intervention, treatment
recommendations, and outcomes, and communicate needs with other disciplines, are lacking.
An empirically designed and rigorously evaluated spiritual assessment tool would provide
clinicians and administrators with a means to meet these goals. A tool developed specifically
for veterans with serious illness would include the unique existential needs that arise as end of
life nears as well as those more common among veterans, such as moral injury. Assessing
spiritual needs and resources of veterans during advanced illness facilitates alignment of
treatment choices with individual values and preference and enhance care coordination, and is
consistent with the priorities of the VA Blueprint for Excellence. A fully validated spiritual
assessment tool for seriously ill veterans would be a resource to the chaplaincy service,
palliative care teams, and other clinicians caring for those with serious illness.
Background: Patients with life-limiting illness confront physical, emotional and spiritual
suffering. While efforts to assess and improve pain and symptom management are essential to
quality palliative care, both clinical experience and a significant body of research demonstrate
that addressing spiritual needs also is central to reducing patient suffering, improving quality of
life, and informing care decisions. However, there exists no gold standard, empirically
developed and rigorously validated tool to assess veterans spiritual care needs and thus
translate preferences for care providers.
Project Objectives: This study will develop and validate a spiritual assessment tool for
palliative care with serious illness as well as create guidelines for tool use, including
communicating results to team members and informing a plan of care.
Design and Methods: This is a mixed methods tool development and validation study.
Qualitative methods of focus groups, in-depth interviews and cognitive testing will be used for
tool development. We will conduct focus groups with patients, families, and providers
(chaplains, nurses, physicians and social workers) to gain feedback on tool content and use.
Chaplain discussions also will focus on tool format, feasibility and acceptability among
chaplains. We will recruit patients with advanced serious illnesses such as stage IV cancer,
stage III or IV CHF and severe COPD, and ESRD, bereaved family members of veterans, and
healthcare professionals, from the Durham VA and chaplains also from the National Office.
Subsequently, we will develop the instrument and cognitively test its con...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9757606
- **Project number:** 5I01HX002037-03
- **Recipient organization:** DURHAM VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Karen E Steinhauser
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-02-01 → 2022-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9757606

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9757606, Developing and Validating a Spiritual Assessment Tool for Seriously-ill Veterans (5I01HX002037-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9757606. Licensed CC0.

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