Factors associated with spiritual care competencies in Taiwan’s clinical nurses: A descriptive correlational study

Abstract

Aims and objectives:To determine factors associated with nurses' spiritual care competencies.Background: Holistic nursing care includes biopsychosocial and spiritual care.However, nurses are limited by a lack of knowledge, time constraints and apprehension of assessing spiritual issues, which leaves them unable to assess and meet patients' spiritual needs. Thus, when patients experience spiritual distress, clinical nurses lose the opportunity to support spiritual growth and self-actualisation. In Taiwan, spiritual care, religion and culture are unique compared to those in other countries. Overall, factors associated with Taiwanese nurses' spiritual care competencies lack comprehensive exploration. Methods:This study adopted a descriptive correlational design using cross-sectional survey (see Appendix S1). Cluster sampling was used to select clinical nurses from fourteen units of a medical centre and a regional hospital. Data were collected from January-June 2018 with a 97.03% response rate. Clinical nurses completed a background questionnaire, spiritual care practice questionnaire, spirituality and spiritual care-related scales. Data were analysed using descriptive and linear regression. This report followed the STROBE checklist.Results: Spiritual care competence ranged from 44-123 (mean 84.67 ± 12.88; range 27-135). The majority of clinical nurses rated their spiritual care competence as moderate (64-98). The significant factors associated with nurses' spiritual care competence were education, religion, interest in spiritual care, having role models, past life events, barriers to providing spiritual care of the spiritual care practice score, and spiritual attitude and involvement score. The overall model was significant (p < .001) and accounted for 55.0% of variance (adjusted R 2 = .488). Conclusions: Most clinical nurses have moderate spiritual care competence. Objective factors identified affect clinical nurses' spiritual care competencies. Relevance to clinical practice: To improve nurses' spiritual care competencies, objective factors that affect clinical nurses' spiritual care competencies must be

Perceptions and practices of spiritual care among hospice physicians and nurses in a Taiwanese tertiary hospital: a qualitative study

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Association between psychological capital and spiritual care competencies of clinical nurses: A multicentre cross‐sectional study

“…In this study, Chinese nurses experienced mild‐to‐moderate levels of spiritual care competencies. Compared with the mean scores for spiritual care competencies of nurses from Malta (Attard et al., 2014), Iran (Ebrahimi et al., 2016) and Taiwan (Hsieh et al., 2020) where the scores were 105.73, 95.20 and 84.67, the total score for spiritual care competencies was 60.88, which was significantly lower ( p <.001). These findings reveal that nurses from China are less able to provide spiritual care.…”

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The spirituality and spiritual care of clinical nurses in Indonesia

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