title: Health Care Providers' Perception of Their Competence in Providing Spiritual Care for Patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Spiritual care is an important part of health-care provision. Spiritual care can improve patients' health. One of the requirements for providing appropriate spiritual care for patients is having the required competence.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study was conducted to investigate the perception of health-care providers of their own competence in providing spiritual cares for patients hospitalized in medical-educational centers of Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study is a cross-sectional, analytical research conducted on 555 nurses of medical-educational centers in Tabriz, Iran, in 2014. Data were collected using a two-part questionnaire including demographic information and the spiritual care competence scale. Data analysis was performed using descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential (independentt-test, Pearson, Spearman, ANOVA with Tukey test) statistics in SPSS software version 13.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results showed that the mean score for nurses' perception of their competence in providing spiritual care for patients was average, that is, 95.2 ± 14.4. Mean score of nurses' perception of their competence in providing spiritual care in each aspect was significantly higher than average (P< 0.05). The highest score was related to individual support and consulting with patients, that is, 21.1 (4.0), and the lowest score was related to reference to experts, that is, 9.5 (2.3). The type of employment and participation in workshops had significant relationships with nurses' perception of their competence for providing spiritual care (P< 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings indicate that authorities and policymakers should take steps in planning for nurses' training for promoting their competence in providing spiritual care for patients; therefore, holding workshops is necessary.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ebrahimi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hossein Namdar
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Areshtanab
authors.affiliation: Road Traffic Injury Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Asghari
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Jafarabadi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Soraya Golipoor
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Khanmiri
keywords: Competence; health-care providers; spiritual care