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Investigation of Nursing Students’ Attitudes Towards Death and Their Perceptions of Spirituality and Spiritual Care

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Abstract

Nurses are responsible for meeting the care needs of dying patients and their families, including their physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual assessment and care. The aim of this descriptive study was to investigate nursing students’ attitudes towards death and their perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care. The study sample consisted of 237 second-, third- and fourth-grade nursing students. Data were collected using a “Personal Information Form”, the “Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS)” and “Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R)”. Number, percentage, mean, standard deviation and Spearman’s correlation analysis were used for analysis. Participants stated that they had witnessed death before (73.8%), that spiritual care of dying patients and their families should be given special importance (93.7%) and that they feel incompetent in providing spiritual care (86.1%). Participants had a mean SSCRS score of 3.45 ± 0.43. They had the highest and lowest scores on the DAP-R subscales of “fear of death” (4.48 ± 0.83) and neutral acceptance (3.71 ± 1.21), respectively, indicating that they have a high fear of death and above average perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care. It is recommended that different teaching methods be integrated into the curriculum to help nursing students develop more positive attitudes towards death and improve their perceptions of spiritual care.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all participating nursing students who took the time to complete the questionnaires and made this study possible.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nursing Department, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Ankara, Turkey

    Hilal Tüzer

  2. Nursing Department, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kırıkkale University, Kırıkkale, Turkey

    Kamile Kırca & Hüsna Özveren

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  1. Hilal Tüzer
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  2. Kamile Kırca
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  3. Hüsna Özveren
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Contributions

HT collected and analysed the data and results, carried out interpretation and drafted the manuscript; HÖ designed the study, collected and analysed the data and results, carried out interpretation and drafted the manuscript; and KK drafted the manuscript, conceived and designed the study, and analysed the data and results.

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Correspondence to Kamile Kırca.

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The author(s) have declared that they did not receive any financial support for this study. Moreover, there are no potential conflicts of interest regarding research, authorship and/or in the publication of this article.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Tüzer, H., Kırca, K. & Özveren, H. Investigation of Nursing Students’ Attitudes Towards Death and Their Perceptions of Spirituality and Spiritual Care. J Relig Health 59, 2177–2190 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01004-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01004-9

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