The Correlation between Spiritual Care Giving and Nurses’ Competences at Critical Care Units

Abstract

ABSTRACT Patients’ complex and critical conditions may influence humans to fulfill their basic daily needs. One of the nurses’ main task is giving the nursing care based on the patients’ daily needs including spiritual care. However, the critical care nurses sometimes only focused on the patients’ physical needs, without paying more attentions to the spiritual care. Many factors may influence the nurses’ competences in giving the spiritual care, including nurses’ perceptions, involvements with the other health workers, spiritual care input as a part of nursing curriculum. Thus, it is greatly important to explore the relationship between spiritual care giving and nurses’ competences in developing the spiritual care to the patients. This study aims to identify the correlation between spiritual care giving and nurses’ competences at critical care units. This quantitative correlation research employed a cross sectional design. Seventy seven critical care nurses at the intensive care units participated in this research. Two research instruments consisting of Spiritual Care Giving Scale (SCGS) and Spiritual Care Competence Scale (SCCS) were used to collect the data. The data was then bivariately analyzed to reveal the nurses’ perceptions on spiritual care. The research results showed that spiritual care giving and nurses’ competences had a strong relationship (r=0.619). Each domain in spiritual care giving scale had a strong relationship with nurses’ competences. It can be concluded that nurses’ competences in spiritual care giving can affect on how they give spiritual care to the patients. Keywords: Critical Care Nursing, Critical Care Unit, Spiritual Care