Attitudes of polish nurses towards representatives of certain religions

BACKGROUND: The verification of attitudes of nurses towards people of different religions is essential when it comes to anticipating opportunities for cooperation in the field of provision of healthcare. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the attitudes of Polish nurses, on the example of nurses living in the Lesser Poland region (southern Poland) towards representatives of certain religions. METHODS: The study was cross-sectional and was carried out using both the diagnostic survey and method of estimation. The selection of the study group was purposeful. The research tools used in the study include the Bogardus’ Social Distance Scale adapted by Jasińska-Kania and Staszyńska; Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) by Sidanius and Pratto; Social Approbation Questionnaire by Drwal and Wilczyńska and Author’s questionnaire. A significance level of 0.05 was assumed in the analyzes. The research was carried among 1271 professionally active nurses. RESULTS: The respondents showed the least significant social distance towards the Orthodox and Protestants and the most significant towards the Muslims. There was a considerable dependence when it comes to the level of the social distance of the respondents shown on sociodemographic variables and frequency of contact with Others, provision of healthcare to people of different religions, and training on transcultural nursing. The relationship between SDO and the modified Bogardus Scale has been shown. All subscales of the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) correlated significantly and negatively with the Bogardus scale. CONCLUSIONS: The study outcomes show that there is a need to train nurses on transcultural nursing.