Abstract
Introduction: Epidemiologic and demographic transitions have led to increased prevalence of chronic diseases requiring management in tertiary hospitals of countries like Oman. Many patients with chronic diseases have a high symptom burden, require frequent hospitalizations, and take multiple medications and other therapies, and all these lead to emotional and spiritual challenges. Nurses caring for such patients should provide spiritual care to ensure patient centered cared and attainment of holistic health.
Purpose: We aimed to describe how frequently registered nurses in Oman provide spiritual care therapeutic interventions.
Methods: The study used cross-sectional design and the Nurse Spiritual Care Therapeutics Scale (NSCTS) to collect data from a nationwide sample of 1469 nurses working in referral hospitals in Oman. Descriptive statistics, the independent samples t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation were used to analyze data.
Results: All the 17 spiritual care therapeutic interventions were used in practice. Each of the 17 spiritual care therapeutic intervention was provided at least thrice in the last 72-80 hours at work. The most frequently used interventions were listening actively to patients’ stories of illness, helping patients have quiet time or space, listening to patients talk about spiritual concerns, assessing patients’ spiritual or religious beliefs and practices, and remaining present to show caring. The interventions used less frequently were documenting of provided spiritual care, arranging for a religious clergy to visit a patient, and discussing patients’ spiritual care needs during shift reports. Nurses that received palliative care training during nursing school (p = 0.006) or after graduation (p = 0.023), and with experience in caring for terminally ill patients (p = 0. 032) had significantly higher mean NSCTS scores. The NSCTS scores were also significantly associated with self-rated religiosity (r = - 0.101, p < 0.001) and spirituality (r = - 0.135, p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Spiritual care contributes to holistic health, patient centered care, and health outcomes. There is need to enhance utilization of objective spiritual care interventions such as documenting spiritual care, arranging meetings between patient and religious clergy, and discussing patients’ spiritual care needs during shift reports. We recommend staff development activities and policies to enhance integration of spiritual care in routine nursing care in Oman.
Notes
References:
1. Abu-El-Noor, M. K., & Abu-El-Noor, N. I. (2021). Spirituality and Spiritual Care in the Arab World. In Handbook of healthcare in the Arab world (pp. 1543-1570). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
2. Anshasi, H. A., Fawaz, M., Aljawarneh, Y. M., & Alkhawaldeh, J. F. M. (2024). Exploring nurses’ experiences of providing spiritual care to cancer patients: a qualitative study. BMC nursing, 23(1), 207.
3. Aslan, H., Aktürk, Ü., & Erci, B. (2020). Validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the nurse spiritual care therapeutics scale. Palliative & Supportive Care, 18(6), 707-712.
4. Hawthorne, D. M., & Gordon, S. C. (2020). The invisibility of spiritual nursing care in clinical practice. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 38(1), 147–155.
5. Jadidi, A., Sadeghian, E., Khodaveisi, M., & Fallahi-Khoshknab, M. (2022). Spiritual needs of the Muslim elderly living in nursing homes: a qualitative study. Journal of Religion and Health, 61(2), 1514-1528.
6. Taylor, E. J., Pariñas, S., Mamier, I., Atarhim, M. A., Angeles, L., Aslan, H., ... & Dehom, S. (2023). Frequency of nurse provided spiritual care: An international comparison. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 32(3-4), 597-609.
7. Torke, A. M., Varner-Perez, S. E., Burke, E. S., Taylor, T. A., Slaven, J. E., Kozinski, K. L., ... & Banks, S. K. (2023). Effects of spiritual care on well-being of intensive care family surrogates: A clinical trial. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 65(4), 296–307.
Sigma Membership
Beta Rho
Type
Presentation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Cross-Sectional
Research Approach
Quantitative Research
Keywords:
Acute Care, Workforce, Competence, Spiritual Care
Recommended Citation
Muliira, Joshua K.; Lazarus, Eilean R.; and Al-Zaabi, Omar, "Nurses' Propensity for Spiritual Care: A Nationwide Study Conducted in Oman" (2025). Biennial Convention (CONV). 11.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/convention/2025/presentations_2025/11
Conference Name
48th Biennial Convention
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Conference Year
2025
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record. All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository. All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2025-11-17
Nurses' Propensity for Spiritual Care: A Nationwide Study Conducted in Oman
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Introduction: Epidemiologic and demographic transitions have led to increased prevalence of chronic diseases requiring management in tertiary hospitals of countries like Oman. Many patients with chronic diseases have a high symptom burden, require frequent hospitalizations, and take multiple medications and other therapies, and all these lead to emotional and spiritual challenges. Nurses caring for such patients should provide spiritual care to ensure patient centered cared and attainment of holistic health.
Purpose: We aimed to describe how frequently registered nurses in Oman provide spiritual care therapeutic interventions.
Methods: The study used cross-sectional design and the Nurse Spiritual Care Therapeutics Scale (NSCTS) to collect data from a nationwide sample of 1469 nurses working in referral hospitals in Oman. Descriptive statistics, the independent samples t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation were used to analyze data.
Results: All the 17 spiritual care therapeutic interventions were used in practice. Each of the 17 spiritual care therapeutic intervention was provided at least thrice in the last 72-80 hours at work. The most frequently used interventions were listening actively to patients’ stories of illness, helping patients have quiet time or space, listening to patients talk about spiritual concerns, assessing patients’ spiritual or religious beliefs and practices, and remaining present to show caring. The interventions used less frequently were documenting of provided spiritual care, arranging for a religious clergy to visit a patient, and discussing patients’ spiritual care needs during shift reports. Nurses that received palliative care training during nursing school (p = 0.006) or after graduation (p = 0.023), and with experience in caring for terminally ill patients (p = 0. 032) had significantly higher mean NSCTS scores. The NSCTS scores were also significantly associated with self-rated religiosity (r = - 0.101, p < 0.001) and spirituality (r = - 0.135, p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Spiritual care contributes to holistic health, patient centered care, and health outcomes. There is need to enhance utilization of objective spiritual care interventions such as documenting spiritual care, arranging meetings between patient and religious clergy, and discussing patients’ spiritual care needs during shift reports. We recommend staff development activities and policies to enhance integration of spiritual care in routine nursing care in Oman.
Description
Spiritual care contributes to holistic health, patient centered care, and better health outcomes. Therefore, nursing of the future must strongly reflect spiritual care if it to meet the increasingly complex needs of clients