Abstract
This descriptive study aimed at determining the spiritual care competencies and the frequency of spiritual care practices of nurses. A total of 119 nurses working in the palliative care unit, oncology services, and intensive care units of a state hospital in Turkey participated in the study. The data were collected by the Participant Information Form, Spiritual Care Competence Scale, and Nurse Spiritual Care Therapeutics Scale. Spiritual care competencies of the nurses were found to be high; the frequency of spiritual care practices was determined as moderate. We found a positive correlation between the spiritual care competencies and the frequency of spiritual care practices of nurses. There was a significant difference between nurses’ received spiritual care training status and their scale scores. In addition, nurses who believed that spiritual care was an important part of nursing care, and an important need of patients, had higher scale scores.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abell, C. H., Garrett-Wright, D., & Abell, C. E. (2018). Nurses’ perceptions of competence in providing spiritual care. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 36(1), 33–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898010116684960
Alshehry, A. (2018). Spirituality and spiritual care competence among expatriate nurses working in Saudi Arabia. Religions, 9(12), 384. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9120384
Aslan, H., Aktürk, Ü., & Erci, B. (2020). Validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the nurse spiritual care therapeutics scale. Palliative & Supportive Care, 18(6), 707–712. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478951520000267
Bakir, E., Samancioglu, S., & Kilic, S. P. (2017). Spiritual experiences of Muslim critical care nurses. Journal of Religion and Health, 56(6), 2118–2128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-017-0382-4
Baldacchino, D. R. (2006). Nursing competencies for spiritual care. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 15(7), 885–896. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2006.01643.x
Berman, A., Snyder, S., & Frandsen, G. (2021). Spirituality. In A. Berman, S. Snyder, & G. Frandsen (Eds.), Kozier & Erb’s fundamentals of nursing: Concepts, process, and practice (11th ed., pp.1047–1064), United Kingdom: Pearson Education.
Cao, Y., Kunaviktikul, W., Petrini, M., & Sripusanapan, A. (2020). Proposing a conceptual framework of spiritual care competence for Chinese nurses. Nursing & Health Sciences, 22(3), 498–506. https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12692
Çetinkaya, B., Altundağ, S., & Azak, A. (2007). Spiritual care and nursing. ADÜ Tıp Fakültesi Dergisi, 8(1), 47–50.
Cheng, Q., Liu, X., Li, X., Wang, Y., Lin, Q., Qing, L., Wei, D., & Chen, Y. (2021). Spiritual care competence and its relationship with self-efficacy: An online survey among nurses in mainland China. Journal of Nursing Management, 29(2), 326–332. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13157
Çınar, F., & Arslan, F.E. (2017). Spiritualism and nursing: The importance of spiritual care in intensive care patients. Journal of Academic Research in Nursing, 3(1), 37–42. https://jag.journalagent.com/jaren/pdfs/JAREN_3_1_37_42.pdf
Daghan, S., Kalkim, A., & Sağkal Midilli, T. (2019). Psychometric evaluation of the Turkish form of the spiritual care competence scale. Journal of Religion and Health, 58(1), 14–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0594-2
Eğlence, R., & Şimşek, N. (2014). To determine the knowledge level about spiritual care and spirituality of nurses. Acıbadem University Health Sciences Journal, 5(1), 48–53.
Ellis, J., & Lyord-Williams, M. (2012). Palliative care. In M. Cobb, C.M Puchalski, & B. Rumbold (Eds.), Oxford textbook of spirituality in healthcare (1st ed., pp.257–261), New York: Oxford University Press.
Ercan, F., Körpe, G., & Demir, S. (2018). Spirituality and spiritual care related perceptions of nurses working at the inpatient services of a university hospital. Gazi Medical Journal., 29, 17–22. https://doi.org/10.12996/gmj.2018.05
Fadıloğlu, Ç., & Ateş, M. (2017). Palyatif bakımda çok boyutlu hasta değerlendirmesi. In Y.Yıldırım, & Ç. Fadıloğlu (Eds.), Palyatif bakım semptom yönetimi ve yaşam sonu bakım (1st ed., pp.51),Ankara: Ankara Nobel Tıp, Kitapevleri.
Gallison, B. S., Xu, Y., Jurgens, C. Y., & Boyle, S. M. (2013). Acute care nurses’ spiritual care practices. Journal of Holistic Nursing: Official Journal of the American Holistic Nurses’ Association, 31(2), 95–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898010112464121
Jafari, M., & Fallahi-Khoshknab, M. (2021). Competence in providing spiritual care and its relationship with spiritual well-being among Iranian nurses. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 10, 388. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_203_21
Kiaei, Z. M., Salehi, A., Moosazadeh Nasrabadi, A., Whitehead, D., Azmal, M., Kalhor, R., & Shah Bahrami, E. (2015). Spirituality and spiritual care in Iran: Nurses’ perceptions and barriers. International Nursing Review, 62(4), 584–592. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12222
Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30(3), 607–610. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447003000308
Mamier, I., & Taylor, E. J. (2015). Psychometric evaluation of the nurse spiritual care therapeutics scale. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 37(5), 679–694. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945914530191
Mamier, I., Taylor, E. J., & Winslow, B. W. (2019). Nurse spiritual care: Prevalence and correlates. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 41(4), 537–554. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945918776328
Meehan, T. C. (2012). Spirituality and spiritual care from a careful nursing perspective. Journal of Nursing Management, 20(8), 990–1001. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2834.2012.01462.x
Moosavi, S., Rohani, C., Borhani, F., & Akbari, M. E. (2019). Factors affecting spiritual care practices of oncology nurses: A qualitative study. Supportive Care in Cancer, 27(3), 901–909. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-018-4378-8
Musa, A. S., Al Qadire, M. I., Aljezawi, M., Tawalbeh, L. I., Aloush, S., & Albanian, F. Z. (2019). Barriers to the provision of spiritual care by nurses for hospitalized patients in Jordan. Research and Theory for Nursing Practice, 33(4), 392–409. https://doi.org/10.1891/1541-6577.33.4.392
Neathery, M., He, Z., Taylor, E. J., & Deal, B. (2020). Spiritual perspectives, spiritual care, and knowledge of recovery among psychiatric mental health nurses. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 26(4), 364–372. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078390319846548
Noble, A., & Jones, C. (2010). Getting it right: oncology nurses’ understanding of spirituality. International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 16(11), 565–569. https://doi.org/10.12968/ijpn.2010.16.11.80022
O’Brien, M. R., Kinloch, K., Groves, K. E., & Jack, B. A. (2019). Meeting patients’ spiritual needs during end-of-life care: A qualitative study of nurses’ and healthcare professionals’ perceptions of spiritual care training. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(1–2), 182–189. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14648
Ramezani, M., Ahmadi, F., Mohammadi, E., & Kazemnejad, A. (2014). Spiritual care in nursing: A concept analysis. International Nursing Review, 61(2), 211–219. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12099
Ricci-Allegra, P. (2018). Spiritual perspective, mindfulness, and spiritual care practice of hospice and palliative nurses. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, 20(2), 172–179. https://doi.org/10.1097/NJH.0000000000000426
Selman, L. E., Brighton, L. J., Sinclair, S., Karvinen, I., Egan, R., Speck, P., Powell, R. A., Deskur-Smielecka, E., Glajchen, M., Adler, S., Puchalski, C., Hunter, J., Gikaara, N., Hope, J., & Collaborative, InSpirit. (2018). Patients’ and caregivers’ needs, experiences, preferences, and research priorities in spiritual care: A focus group study across nine countries. Palliative Medicine, 32(1), 216–230. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269216317734954
Timmins, F., & Kelly, J. (2008). Spiritual assessment in intensive and cardiac care nursing. Nursing in Critical Care, 13(3), 124–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-5153.2008.00276.x
Van Leeuwen, R., Tiesinga, L. J., Middel, B., Post, D., & Jochemsen, H. (2009). The validity and reliability of an instrument to assess nursing competencies in spiritual care. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18, 2857–2869. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2008.02594.x
Acknowledgements
We would like to extend our gratitude to participant nurses
Funding
The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by AK, EKE and RE. The first draft of the manuscript was written by AK and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Ethical Approval
This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Non-Invasive Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Amasya University (10 March 2022/ No: E-30640013–050.01.04–61725).
Consent to Participate
Written and verbal informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Kurtgöz, A., Keten Edis, E. & Erarslan, R. Spiritual Care Competencies and the Frequency of Spiritual Care Practices of Nurses in Turkey. J Relig Health 63, 1747–1760 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01884-7
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01884-7