Spiritual Care Competence among Malaysian Staff Nurses

Abstract

Background: Perceptions and levels of understanding of spiritual care vary among nurses, which may affect their competency to meet the patient’s spiritual needs. Therefore, determining nurses' perception of spiritual care is the first important step in addressing the spiritual needs of patients, and may also help nursing management in developing spiritual care education and training programs.Purpose: This study aimed to assess the competence of Malaysian nurses toward providing spiritual care and identify the relationship between nurses’ spiritual care competence and their sociodemographic factors. Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design to assess nurses' competence in spiritual care by using a simple random sampling method which involved 271 staff nurses from a public hospital in Northeast of Peninsular Malaysia. Spiritual care competence scale in Bahasa Malaysia version was used for data collection. Data analysis was performed using descriptive (frequency, percent, mean, standard deviation) and inferential (Chi-square and Pearson’s correlation test) statistics.Results: This study showed that 69.7% of staff nurses had an average level of competence toward providing spiritual care for the patients (M=95.44, SD=4.34). The highest mean difference among the domains was personal support and patients counseling (MD=5.789), while the lowest mean difference was assessment and implementation of spiritual care (MD=1.258). Furthermore, there was no significant relationship between spiritual care competence and sociodemographic factors (gender, age, marital status, educational level, nurses' experience, race, religion, and previous participation in training spiritual care programs).Conclusion: The majority of nurses have an average level of competence toward providing spiritual care. There is no significant relationship between nurses’ spiritual care competence and sociodemographic factors.

Student nurses' spiritual care competence and attitude: An online survey

“…There was no significant relationship between demographic variables such as gender, nationality, and religion with student nurses' competence to provide spiritual care and their attitude toward spiritual care. This finding is consistent with those of Abusafia et al ( 2021 ) and Atarhim et al ( 2019 ). In contrast, Daghan ( 2018 ), and Alorani and Alradaydeh ( 2018 ) showed that female students tended to share their feelings more than their male counterparts and had a higher perception of spirituality/spiritual care.…”

Nurse’s spiritual care competence in Ethiopia: A multicenter cross-sectional study

“…The findings of this study demonstrated no significant relation between marital status, educational level, clinical experience, and spiritual care competency. This conclusion is supported by studies from Iran [ 26 ] and Malaysia [ 30 ], which revealed no link between spiritual care competency and socio-demographic characteristics.…”

Aplicabilidade da spiritual care competence scale: uma revisão integrativa

“…Além disso, todos os estudos se basearam em questões sociodemográficas dos entrevistados tais como: idade, gênero, estado civil [22][23][24][26][27] , grau de formação ou qualificação, tempo de experiência na Enfermagem 15,[18][19][20][21]25,29 e setor/unidade onde trabalha [19][20]26,29 O predomínio feminino tende a ser interpretado como uma característica histórica das profissões de saúde, em especial a Enfermagem, que sempre foi constituída, em sua maioria, por mulheres 30 .…”

“…Em relação à idade dos entrevistados, a maioria dos estudos foi realizada com profissionais de Enfermagem entre 30 e 40 anos 15,[19][20][22][23][24][25][26][27] .…”