Spiritual Intelligence and Spiritual Care Among Nursing Students in a Selected University

Abstract

Background: To ensure that nursing education adequately prepares nurses for comprehensive patient care, educators must develop a heightened awareness of the religious and spiritual elements involved in patient care. Moreover, educators must possess the ability to equip student nurses with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide spiritually-based care ethically. Methods: A descriptive-correlation study was conducted among 359 Nursing students in a non-sectarian, private university in the Philippines. Convenience sampling was employed using two adopted tools, the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI) and the Student Survey of Spiritual Care (SSSC) to collect the data. A Spearman rank order was utilized for the test of the relationship. The data analysis was done using SPSS version 28.0. Results: The study revealed a higher level of spiritual intelligence in terms of critical existential thinking (M = 19.39, SD = 4.65) and lowest with conscious state expansion subscale (M = 13.65, SD = 3.55). Overall, the students exhibited a moderate level of spiritual intelligence (M = 66.16, SD = 3.82).  Moreover, Nursing students perceived a very positive experience (M = 4.60, SD = 1.26) in providing spiritual care. There is a moderate relationship between spiritual intelligence and the ability to give spiritual care (rs = 0.515, p = 0.000), which was statistically significant. Conclusions: Spirituality holds great significance within the field of nursing, as it carries profound implications for the provision of care to patients. Moreover, it represents an indispensable component of holistic nursing care.