Nurses’ Attitudes Towards Spiritual Care and Spiritual Care Practices

Background: Spirituality is an important dimension of human existence with a crucial role in health promotion. This study aimed to investigate nurses’ attitudes towards spiritual care and its practice. Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The relevant data were collected by Nursing Spiritual Care Perspective Scale (NSCPS). In this study, 166 nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences were selected by proportional stratified randomized sampling method. The obtained data were analysed by descriptive statistics, including frequency, mean, and standard deviation, using SPSS V. 16. Results: The Mean±SD score of nurses’ attitudes towards spiritual practice was 3.67±0.51. The mean score of responses to 9 out of 11 items was above 3 indicating high range of attitude toward providing spiritual care. The Mean±SD score of nurses’ spiritual practice was 1.93±0.48. The mean score of the responses to 3 out of 12 items was above 2 indicating the nurses’ weak ability to provide spiritual care. Conclusion: Despite nurses’ positive attitudes towards providing spiritual care, they have provided insufficient spiritual care interventions. Thus, appropriate approach for teaching spiritual merits and increasing nurses’ abilities for providing spiritual care seems necessary