Paper Title
Nursing Students' Attitude Toward Spiritual Care

Abstract
Although researches show that some patients consider the nursing staff as a resource for spiritual issues, few studies have surveyed students about their understanding of spirituality and spiritual practice. This study was conducted to explore the nursing students’ point of views about spirituality and spiritual care. In this descriptive, cross sectional study 95 nursing students were selected with convenience sampling from two nursing schools in south of Iran. The instruments consisted of a demographic information form and the Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS) which its validity and reliability were confirmed in previous studies. The SSCRS investigate view point toward spirituality and spiritual care using a 5-point Likert scale with responses ranging from zero (strongly disagree) to four (strongly agree). Data were analyzed using the SPSS. The average item mean value was 57.31±9.74. The viewpoint of majority of nursing students (80.6%) was semi-favorable about spirituality while 10 and 9.4 percent had favorable and unfavorable point of view respectively. Inadequate preparation may contribute to nurses' perceptions of incompetence and avoidance of spiritual matters in practice. Studies conducted with nursing students in other countries, have predominantly focused on the effects of spiritual education on attitudes.