Understanding these religious motivations and religious spiritual care practices of Christian nurses provides evidence that can stimulate debate for policy makers and scholars. It can also inform educators teaching spiritual care and administrators supervising religious nurses.

Nurse-provided spiritual care includes support of patient spiritual practices such as prayer. However, limited evidence exists about how nurses respond when a patient requests prayer. A subsample of nurses (n = 381) from a larger study responded to two open-ended questions in an online survey in response to a prayer scenario. Among these mostly Christian nurses, 97% indicated willingness to pray. Content analysis revealed a five-component structure for praying: Open, Set the Stage, Request, Wrap-up, Close. The structure provides a template for future research and nurse prayer in clinical contexts.

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