Currently I am working on palliative sedation of dying patients with symptoms of existential suffering and so I am searching for appropriate assessment-tools for these patients especially when verbal communication is limited.
The following may give you some ideas, though it's not exactly what you're looking for:
Development of the CASH assessment tool to address existential concerns in patients with serious illness.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2014.0053
By Alesi, Erin R.; Ford, Timothy R.; Chen, Christina J.; Fletcher, Devon S.; Morel, Thomas D.; Bobb, Barton T.; Lyckholm, Laurel J.
Journal of Palliative Medicine, Vol 18(1), Jan 2015, 71-75.
Introduction: Existential suffering in patients with serious illness significantly impacts quality of life, yet it remains a challenge to define, assess, and manage adequately. Improving upon understanding and practice in the existential domain is a topic of interest for palliative care providers. Methods: As a quality improvement project, our palliative care team created an existential assessment tool utilizing a dialogue-oriented approach with four questions designed to identify sources of existential distress as well as strengths and challenges in coping with this distress. The tool utilized the mnemonic CASH, with each letter representing the core objective of the question. Providers who requested the palliative care consult were asked to evaluate the CASH assessment. On completion of the project, palliative care consultants evaluated the appropriateness of the CASH assessment tool. Results: Patient responses to the CASH questions were insightful and reflected their beliefs, priorities, and concerns. Eight of nine providers found that the assessment enabled understanding of their patient. Seven noted a positive impact on their practice, and five reported an improvement in patient care after the assessment. The palliative care consultants who used the tool enjoyed using it, and half of them suggested changes to patient care based on their assessment. The most common reasons for not using the CASH assessment were inappropriateness to the consult, lack of perceived patient/caregiver receptiveness, or consultation service too busy. Conclusion: Our quality improvement project demonstrated that the CASH assessment tool is useful in ascertaining existential concerns of patients with serious illness. It enhances patient care by the primary team as well as the palliative care team. As a brief set of questions with an easy-to-remember mnemonic, the CASH assessment tool is feasible for a busy palliative consult service. Furthermore, the positive results of this project merit more rigorous evaluation of the CASH assessment tool in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)
The CareSearch evidence based palliative care website has some useful information in this area. I'm not sure whether they have any actual tools, but there are some very useful links to journal articles that may be of use.
https://www.caresearch.com.au/caresearch/tabid/504/Default.aspx
@ Hendrika, Lee Chee and John: thank you very much for your helpful answers.
@ Alvaro: Muchas gracias,still struggle with my lousy Spanish :), but it seems to be an interesting tool.