The nurses’ perceptions of spiritual care competency in intensive care units

ABSTRACT

The health-care system around the world has recognized the importance and usefulness of spirituality in the delivery of care. The goal of this study was to describe nurses’ self-perceived ability in providing spiritual care to patients in Intensive Care Units, as well as to look into the relationship between demographic variables and their competencies. The researchers used a descriptive correlation design. There were 106 surveys distributed in total. Two large hospitals in Jouf, Saudi Arabia, had an 83.01% response rate. The self-reported questionnaire was completed by 88 nurses. The majority of nurses said they were capable of providing spiritual care to patients of the Islamic faith. Religions had statistically significant mean Spiritual Care Competency scores. It is critical to have a unified health strategy based on multidisciplinary collaborations to control spiritual care delivery, particularly in Intensive Care Units.

KEYWORDS:

• Competence
• intensive care units (ICUs)
• nurses
• perception
• spiritual care

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all of the nurses who participated in the survey. No external or intramural funding was received

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was accomplished with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval from the Local Committee of Bioethics (LCBE) at Jouf University (Date 27 Nov, 2019 /No10-03/41) and ethical approval from selected hospitals were attained.