Nurse education and willingness to provide spiritual care

• Nurses’ willingness to provide spiritual care plays a critical role for enhancing care quality.
• Nurses who receive related education are generally willing to provide spiritual care for their patients.
• Educational level makes some differences within specific spiritual care items.
• Spirituality is a highly subjective and multidimensional concept, and spiritual care is typically provided on a one-to-one basis.

SummaryBackgroundSpiritual care is a critical part of holistic care, and nurses require adequate preparation to address the spiritual needs of patients. However, nurses' willingness to provide such care has rarely been reported. Hence, nurses' education, and knowledge of spiritual care, as well as their willingness to provide it require further study.MethodsA convenience sample of 200 nurses participated in the study. Quantitative data were collected using a 21-item Spiritual Care Needs Inventory (content validity index = .87; Cronbach's alpha = .96).ResultsThe majority of participants were female (96.5%, n = 193) between 21 and 59 years old (mean = 35.1 years). Moreover, the majority of participants had a Bachelor's degree (74.0%, n = 148) and 1–36 years of clinical experience (mean = 12.13 years). Regarding religious beliefs, 63 (31.5%) had no religious belief, and 93 (46.5%) did not engage in any religious activity. Overall, the nurses were willing to provide spiritual care, although only 25 (12.5%) felt that they had received adequate education.ConclusionThe findings of this study indicate the need for further educational preparation in spiritual care for nurses. Specifically, additional teaching materials are required that are more directly related to spiritual care. Greater emphasis should be placed on different subject areas in school-based education, continuing education, and self-learning education according to the needs of nurses. Since spiritual care education needs policy support, in-depth discussions should take place regarding the approach and cultural environment for providing spiritual care in future nursing courses. Moreover, further studies should investigate barriers in providing spiritual nursing care to patients and whether they are the results of a lack of relevant knowledge or other factors.