title: Singapore nursing students' perceptions and attitudes about spirituality and spiritual care in practice: a qualitative study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This exploratory study investigated nursing students' perceptions and attitudes about spirituality and spiritual care in practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  A qualitative interpretative approach was used to investigate the research question.
  
  
  METHODS
  In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 final-year preregistration nursing students from 3 different educational institutions offering a degree or diploma program in Singapore. Data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman's method of thematic analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thematic analysis identified three themes: (a) students' perceptions of spirituality, (b) spiritual care, and (c) factors influencing spiritual care in practice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study informed that though young, spirituality matters to the nursing students. Accordingly, nursing is perceived to play an integral role in spiritual care. Enabling factors need to be systematically addressed both in the education and practice arenas before the perennial issue of disconnect between development and implementation of spirituality in practice can be bridged.
authors.affiliation: Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, National University of Singapore. nurtlh@nus.edu.sg
authors.forename: Lay Hwa
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Tiew
authors.forename: Vicki
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Drury
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000458:organization & administration; D005260:Female; D006694:Holistic Health; D018939:Holistic Nursing / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D057184:Practice Patterns, Nurses' / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D029181:Spirituality; D055815:Young Adult