Aim: The aim of this study was to understand nurses' opinions about initiating spiritual or religious conversation during patient care and to measure how these perspectives are associated with demographic, religious and work-related characteristics.
Background: Nurses are expected to provide spiritual care and do so in diverse ways. Little is known about how nurses think about initiating spiritual or religious discourse.
Design: Cross-sectional, quantitative.
Methods: Online survey methods allowed data collection from 445 nurses. The survey, accessed from the homepage of the Journal of Christian Nursing for 6 months beginning June 2015, included scales measuring various facets of religiosity, and items assessing nurse opinions about introducing spirituality or religion during patient care and demographic and work-related variables. Variables showing significant associations with Nurse Opinion items in bivariate analyses were examined using binary logistic regression.
Results: About 90% of participants believed it appropriate to initiate conversation about spirituality/religion and nearly three-quarters thought it appropriate to self-disclose spirituality/religion or offer prayer under certain circumstances or anytime. All personal religiosity indicators except tentativeness of belief were found to be associated with responses to Nurse Opinion items. That is, higher religiosity was associated with opinion one could initiate such conversations, whereas lower religiosity was associated with waiting for patients to initiate. Nurses working in a faith-based organization were 276% more likely to believe they could initiate such conversation and 153% more likely to think they could initiate an offer of prayer.
Conclusion: Nurse religiosity and work environment were associated with nurse opinions about initiating spiritual/religious discourse with patients.
Keywords: conversation; nurses/midwives/nursing; prayer; religion; self-disclosure; spiritual care; spirituality; survey methods.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.