Are the Nurses Competent to Give Spiritual Care?

Abstract

Introduction: Spiritual care is an inseparable element of nursing. A descriptive study was conducted to assess the spiritual care competence of nurses working in the intensive care units. The objectives were to assess the spiritual care competence of nurses on six domains of spiritual care, namely assessment and implementation of spiritual care, attitude toward patient's spirituality, communication, personal support and patient counseling, referral, professionalization, and improving quality of spiritual care and to associate spiritual care competence with selected demographic variables. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted intensive care units of selected hospitals at Kollam. Fifty staff nurses were selected by purposive sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The findings revealed that 74% of subjects reported moderate competence, 22% less competence, and 4% have adequate competence. Conclusion: The study provides evidence to guide the nurse educators and policymakers on the need to focus on preparing nurses to develop spiritual nursing care competence. Nurses' competence in spiritual care gives a holistic perspective to patient care. A well-planned training program gives more clarity to the concept of spiritual care and nurses' role in various domains of spiritual care for patients. Training programs can be planned for nurses and students on spiritual care, policy guidelines on spiritual care can be developed and implemented, which may help the nurses to enable their clients to find meaning in their experience during hospitalization.