Spiritual Care:Iranian Critical Care Nurses’ Perception

Background: Spiritual care is an essential component in nursing practice and strongly influenced by the socio-cultural context. This study was conducted to examine Iranian critical care nurses' perception of spiritual care in South-East of Iran. Like most Iranians, nurses consider themselves religious and religious beliefs are often, in an explicit way, integrated into their spiritual issues. Spiritual care is highly considered by majority of Iranian nurses. Providing spiritual care may be influenced by nurses' perception and their views of spiritual care. Since in the context there is no study to actually assess nurses' perception of spiritual care, this study conducted to fulfill this aim.

Method: The study employed a descriptive design. A census sample consisted of 152 critical care nurses working in critical care units supervised by Kerman Medical University participated in this study. Iranian Spiritual Care Questionnaire was used to assess Iranian critical care nurses' perception of spiritual care.

Results: The critical care nurses, mean score of spiritual care perception was 98.89 ± 16.50. It means that nurses had neutral to positive perception of spiritual care.

Conclusion: Spiritual care raises a demand that calls nurses to create a close relationship with patients. The physical and organisational context must be supportive and enable nurses to stand up to the demands of close relationships.