The Effect of Spiritual Care Training on the Professional Quality of Life of Nurses in Intensive Care Units

Nurses face conditions that can adversely affect their quality of professional life due to the care of their clients on a daily basis. Paying attention to the spiritual dimension of human existence plays an important role in his physical, mental, and social health. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of spiritual care training on the quality of professional life of nurses in intensive care units.

The present study was an experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design, in which the nurses in intensive care units of hospitals affiliated with Isfahan University of Medical Sciences were studied in the first half of 2021. Forty nurses were selected through the convenience sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control groups by lottery method. For the experimental group, spiritual care was taught by the researcher in 8 one-hour group sessions in one month, two sessions per week in groups of 5 people in the conference hall of the hospital in the form of lectures and group discussions, with the content of the importance of spirituality and spiritual care. Figley and Stamm's (2002) professional quality of life questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 21 statistical software and using Fisher's exact tests, chi-square, independent and paired t.

There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic variables. The mean scores of burnout, satisfaction, and fatigue due to compassion before the intervention in the two groups were not statistically significant (P> 0.05) but after the intervention these differences were significant and in the intervention group of burnout (P <0.001) and fatigue (P<0.001) decreased and the level of compassion satisfaction (P<0.001) had increased.

Spiritual care training can be helpful and effective in improving the quality of the professional life of nurses in intensive care units, so it is recommended that nursing managers use this intervention to improve the quality of the professional life of nurses.