Introducing a spiritual care training course and determining its effectiveness on nursing students’ self-efficacy in providing spiritual care for the patients

INTRODUCTION: How to train nurses to provide spiritual care, as one of the basic competencies of nursing, based on patient's perception and culture has been considered highly important. Although nurses’ training is recommended in this area, few researches have studied the format of such programs. This study is conducted with the aim of introducing the training course of spiritual care and determining its effectiveness on nursing students’ self-efficacy in providing spiritual care. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The method of this study was of a pre-post interventional research. Senior students (n = 30) of the Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, passing the training course in the field, were chosen as the studied sample. Study intervention was the implementation of the designed curriculum based on nursing books, focusing on providing the spiritual care for patients. The dependent variable of the study was the students’ self-efficacy feeling in providing spiritual care to the patients. A researcher-madequestionnaire, as well as the pre-post interventional tests, was used, then, to assess this variable. By means of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software, data were analyzed, and the level of significance was considered at P <0.05. FINDINGS: The findings of the study showed that self-efficacy mean score of nursing students in providing spiritual care in the pretest was 13.74, showing the average level of perceived self-efficacy. The students’ self-efficacy mean, after participating in the training spiritual care programs, however, changed to 21.1, indicating the increased level of self-efficacy. Results of paired t-test, also, showed that self-efficacy mean score of the study samples has significantly increased in the posttest, compared with the pretest. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: According to these findings, it can be concluded that based on this designated curriculum, students have a chance of getting acquaintance with some concepts as: Spirituality and spiritual care, identifying the spiritual needs of patients, and designing a care plan to meet these requirements. These factors, therefore, have a great impact on students’ effectiveness in providing spiritual care for patients.