Competence and perceptions of spiritual care among clinical nurses: A multicentre cross‐sectional study

Abstract Aims To identify latent profiles of competence and perceptions of spiritual care among clinical nurses and explore the possible influencing factors. Background Understanding nurses' level of spiritual care competence and their perceptions and acceptance of such care is important, which could help devise nurse training programmes to address such competence in clinical nurses. However, research addressing interindividual variability in competence and perceptions among Chinese nurses is lacking. Design Multicentre cross‐sectional study. Methods Nurses working in departments with critically ill patients from 12 community, 5 secondary and 10 tertiary hospitals in Shanghai completed a demographic information questionnaire and the Chinese versions of the Spiritual Care Competence Scale, Spiritual Care‐Giving Scale and Spiritual Perspectives Scale. The data were analysed using IBM SPSS v26.0 and Mplus version 8.3. Latent profile analysis identified subgroups with different levels of spiritual care competence. Results In total, 1277 Chinese nurses were recruited. Four profiles of competence and perceptions of spiritual care were revealed: Low ability (23.8%), High ability (6.4%), High acceptance (34.9%) and Moderate (34.9%). The level of job position, spiritual care‐related education, hospital grade and nurses' perceptions and perspectives of spiritual care predicted the probability of profile memberships in their competence. Conclusions There was heterogeneity in the characteristics of spiritual care competence. Nursing managers can implement individualised interventions, including relevant training, according to the influencing factors of different competence profiles to improve the level of such competence among nurses. Relevance to Clinical Practice The results provide a new and expanded view of improving nurses' spiritual care competence. Interprofessional collaboration with clinicians, administrators, educators and spiritual leaders can contribute to the development of related education and training. Reporting Method EQUATOR guidelines, STROBE checklist: cross‐sectional studies. Patient or Public Contribution All participants were clinical nurses. Participants were informed they could withdraw from the study at any time.