Determination of spiritual care-related opinions of nurses who provide care for cancer patients

32^nd Euro Nursing and Medicare Summit

October 26-28, 2017 | Paris, France

Elanur Yilmaz Karabulutlu, Seda Karaman, Gulden Atan and Suheyla Yarali

Ataturk University, Turkey

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Objective: This study was conducted to determine the spiritual care-related opinions of nurses who provide care for patients with cancer. Material and Method: The present study is a descriptive type research. The study data were collected in May 2016 from four hospitals in Turkey. The study population consisted of the nurses who provide care for the patients with cancer at the hospitals specified and the study was conducted with 76 nurses, who agreed to participate in the research, without any sample selection. The research data were collected using "Personal Information Form" that surveys the knowledge and education of nurses about spirituality as well as their personal characteristics, and the "Spirituality and Spiritual Care Scale (SSCS)". Results: Among the nurses, 59.2% was in the 19-28 age group, 86.8% was male, 56.6% was married, 50.0% had balanced income, 56.6% was college graduate, 76.3% was working for 1-9 years, 55.3% was working for 40 hours a week, and 60.5% was working at night shift. Among them 65.8% stated that there was no spirituality-oriented practice in their clinics, and it was determined that 51.3% was knowledgeable about spiritual care, 69.7% hadn't received any training about spiritual care, and 65.2% of the nurses who had received a spiritual care training was found to be trained in their college. 60.5% could meet the spiritual needs of patients, 64.5% was listening to the patients to meet their spiritual care needs, and 35.5% stated that lack of staff is the reason behind the inability to meet spiritual care needs of the patients. The mean total score in SSCS taken by the nurses was 51.66���±6.56 and the mean score in the spirituality and spiritual care sub-scale was 23.17���±4.73, the mean score in the religiosity sub-scale was 10.26���±2.20, and the mean score in the individual care sub-scale was found to be 12.96���±2.18. The difference between mean SSCS scores of the nurses was found to be statistically significant in terms age, education status and ability to meet spiritual needs of the patients (p>0.05). Conclusion: The levels of perception of nurses about spirituality and spiritual care were determined to be high. It was found that nurses' age, education level, and their ability to meet the spiritual needs of patients affects their levels of perception about spirituality and spiritual care.

Biography :

Seda Karaman is working in Internal Medicine Nursing field. She is interested in Oncology, Alternative and Complementary Medicine and History of Nursing topics. She is currently working on Doctoral Thesis in Public Health Nursing from Ataturk University in Turkey.