Thank you for the article, "Incorporating Spiritual Beliefs Into End-of-Life Care" (January/March 2009). As a student, I believe in incorporating spiritual needs in patient care, but I have witnessed neglect of spiritual needs in all aspects of nursing care. Checking advance directives or requesting priest/pastor according to patient's religion seems to be the limit.

Prior to this I had not witnessed an assessment tool like GUIDE (gather, utilize, inform, document, and evaluate) nor an emphasis on spirituality. I was happy to see this assessment tool exists to help nurses.

Sinae Waddle

San Diego State University Nursing, San Diego, CA