title: Nursing students' spiritual well-being, spirituality and spiritual care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Spiritual care should be considered an important part of holistic and multidisciplinary care and it has not been given much importance so far. We should begin with student nurses, who will soon be clinicians, to find out about potentiality of the nursing profession to put spiritual care into practice. Little has been known about spiritual well-being, spirituality, and spiritual care perspectives among nursing students. In this study, a comparison has been made in spiritual well-being, spirituality, and spiritual care perspectives between the first and fourth year baccalaureate nursing students.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a descriptive-comparative study that was carried out among 283 nursing students. All the students were Iranians studying in the universities of Iran, Tehran, and Shahid Beheshti medical sciences. They volunteered to participate in the study. There were 105 first year students and 178 fourth year students. The questionnaires used were on Spiritual Well-being (SWB) Scale, Spiritual Perspective Scale (SPS), and Nursing Spiritual Care Perspective Scale (NSCPS). The statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS software, version 10. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (distribution frequency, mean, and standard deviation). Mann-Whitney test was to compare each item and independent t-test to compare the mean values of two groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Regarding spiritual well-being, there were no significant differences between the two groups. 98.8% of the first year students and 100% of the fourth year students were in the category of moderate spiritual well-being. Neither were there any significant differences between the two groups in spiritual perspective and spiritual care perspectives.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The scores of fourth year nursing students were similar to those of first year students in spiritual well-being, spirituality, and spiritual care perspectives, though the fourth year students had already undergone 4-year nursing course. Including spiritual care in the curriculum of nursing students' courses will add to their understanding and provision of spiritual care. This will fill the present gap evident in the system in Iran. At present, the educational system here does not make use of spiritual care as part of its comprehensive curriculum.
authors.affiliation: Nursing Administration Office, Clinical Supervisor of Sadjad Hospital, Shahriar, Iran.
authors.forename: Mojgan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abbasi
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Nursing, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Marhamat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Farahani-Nia
authors.affiliation: Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Neda
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mehrdad
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Azam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Givari
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, School of Management and Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haghani
keywords: Iran; nursing student; spiritual care; spiritual well-being; spirituality