Do clinicians assess patients’ religiousness? An audit of an aged psychiatry community team

Abstract

Objectives:

To determine the frequency and quality of religious history taking of patients by clinicians working in an old age psychiatry service.

Methods:

A retrospective audit of 80 randomised patient files from the Koropiko Mental Health Services for Older People (MHSOP) in Middlemore Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.

Results:

A total of 66 clinical records were available for analysis. A religious history was taken in 33/66 (50%) patients. However, when such histories were evaluated using the FICA assessment tool, only 10/33 (30.3%) histories contained detailed information regarding the patient’s religiousness.

Conclusions:

The infrequency and low quality of religious histories discovered in this audit suggest that clinicians need more training in taking a religious history from patients.

Keywords

religion assessment audit

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