82 y/o African American who stated on a weekday, “What I am most concerned about is that I will not be able to go to church on Sunday.” Role of Religion in the Black Elderly Population and Clinical Care is Pivotal. She stopped eating and participating in her care. The team diagnosed her as being depressed and that she should have a psych consult.
I agreed she was depressed and a psych consult was appropriate but I thought the best consult would be her church minister. If he came to see her and said Sister shall we pray; is she going to say no.
I don’t know for a fact but I would dare say that I don’t think that there are five atheist black women across the world as religion and pleasing God was crucial to one’s earthly survival. We reached out to her minister and he came to see her.
He told her that if she is not discharged on Sunday, he would come back and pray with her. He understood that from her perspective, she needed to please God. She was a different individual and no longer depressed, back to participating in her care and no longer had guilt feelings of not pleasing God.
