Effectiveness of spiritual care training to enhance spiritual health and spiritual care competency among oncology nurses

BACKGROUND: Although spiritual care is a basic element of holistic nursing, nurses’ spiritual care knowledge and abilities are often unable to satisfy patients’ spiritual care needs. Therefore, nurses are in urgent need of relevant training to enhance their abilities to provide patients with spiritual care. DESIGN: A nonrandomized controlled trial. OBJECTIVE: To establish a spiritual care training protocol and verify its effectiveness. METHODS: This study recruited 92 nurses at a cancer treatment hospital in a single province via voluntary sign-up. The nurses were divided into two groups—the study group (45 people) and the control (wait-listed) group (47 people)—using a coin-toss method. The study group received one spiritual care group training session every six months based on their routine nursing education; this training chiefly consisted of lectures by experts, group interventions, clinical practice, and case sharing. The control group participated in monthly nursing education sessions organized by the hospital for 12 continuous months. RESULTS: After 12 months of intervention, the nurses in the study group had significantly higher overall spiritual health and spiritual care competency scores as well as significantly higher scores on all individual dimensions compared with those in the control group (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: A spiritual care training protocol for nurses based on the concept of mutual growth with patients enhances nurses’ spiritual well-being and spiritual care competencies.