Association of Demographic Variable with Spirituality Among Nursing Students

Today spiritual care is considered an essential part of the overall care provided to improve the quality of life for the patient and their families. Today health is no longer viewed as a passive state of being, but as a dynamic process of attaining higher levels of wellness within each dimension. Spirituality and spiritual care are not new to nursing and healthcare system. The meaning of spirituality and spiritual care among nurses is culturally constituted and influenced by many factors, such as the nurse's ethnic background, religious affiliation, level of education and clinical experience. (MC Sherry W Pubmed) Nursing students must receive appropriate training to develop their abilities to provide spiritual care. (Wu LF).

The aim of the study (i) To evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching program in spiritual health among the nursing student in terms of knowledge and attitude. (ii) To explore the association of spiritual score (post test) with demographic variable.

The method of this study was pre post-interventional quasi experimental research. Nursing students fresher were chosen as the study sample. Study intervention was the implementation of structured teaching program based on spiritual health, mindful breathing exercise and focusing on providing the spiritual care for the patient.

Two sets of instruments were used to collect quantitative data from nursing students. Structured questionnaires were administered pre & post to assess the knowledge of spiritual health and spiritual assessment scale by O'Brien (2014) 21 items scale to evaluate the attitude of nursing students regarding spiritual health. A data sheet was designed to collect information on participant's demographics including age, gender, educations, Religious, Occupation, Personal Habits and Source of Information. Two sets of instruments were used to assess the spiritual score in terms of knowledge and attitude.

The survey response rate was 92.63% (176/190). In Experimental Group, the majority of respondents with high spiritual score were female (89%), median age 17–19 years and majority of them 89% are Hindu and respondents had their previous education as Intermediate and majority of samples with previous education score 61–70%, majority of respondent with high spiritual score parents are having Higher Education and are self employed and from nuclear family and majority of respondents were non user of alcohol tobacco or any sort of personal habit and respondents with high spiritual score had the source of information regarding spirituality was through parents. In Control Group, the majority of respondents were female (77%), median age 17–19 years and majority of them are having Hindu as religion 79% of respondents had their previous education as Intermediate and previous education score between 50–60%, majority of respondents parents education were in category Primary and self-employed, belongs to nuclear family and maximum respondents were non users and had source of information regarding spirituality was through media.