The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure spiritual needs of dying patients. This research addressed the need for an instrument to use in both the research and clinical settings to identify specific spiritual needs of individuals in their last stage of life. The goal was to develop and test an instrument that was specific to the dying patient, that defined spirituality more broadly than religion, and that would provide direction as to appropriate interventions for spiritual needs.
This study consisted of two phases. Phase one, the qualitative portion of the study, consisted of structured interviews of 19 hospice patients to identify their perceptions of the word spiritual and needs they had related to their spirituality. Data were analyzed and reduced into codes and themes. Thirty different spiritual needs were identified which were grouped into six themes. These six themes were: the need for religion, companionship, finish business, involvement and control, experience nature, and positive outlook. The results of phase one were used to construct items for the Spiritual Needs Inventory (SNI).
In phase two, the quantitative portion of the study, the SNI was administered to 100 hospice patients. Psychometric testing of the SNI included examination of reliability via internal consistency and examination of validity via content and construct validity. Item to total correlation analysis and factor analysis resulted in a 17 item SNI with five subscales which explained 63.7% of the variance. Cronbach's coefficient alpha for the 17 item SNI was 0.85. Correlations between the subscales were low.
Data obtained from this sample of 100 were analyzed. These subjects indicated they needed the items on the SNI to a great extent. The needs that subjects reported as unmet most often were related to the presence of others such as family and friends, or were related to functional status such as attending religious services. There were significant differences in subjects' responses to the SNI for the demographic variables of gender, education, and place of residence.
