Religiosity of nurses related to provisions of spiritual care to patients

This descriptive, nonexperimental design study was conducted to determine if a correlation exists between nurses’ religiosity and their attitudes toward provision of spiritual care to patients. The nonrandom, convenience sample consisted of 50 nurses employed at a teaching hospital in the southwestern United States. The Religious Attitude Inventory and the Patient Spiritual Need Index were used. Test results were calculated using a Spearman rho to produce a correlation coefficient. A positive statistically significant relationship was found (r = .587, p = .001). Nurses who scored high on the Religious Attitude Inventory also scored higher on the Patient Spiritual Need Index. Additionally, to assess for relationships between demographic variables and scores on the two tests, a Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was done. No demographic variables had a statistically significant relationship with scores on the Religious Attitude Inventory and the Patient Spiritual Need Index.