Perception on spiritual care: Comparation of the nursing students of public university and religious-based university

OBJECTIVE: Poor implementation of spiritual care in nursing practice may stem from the nursing education. This study aimed to compare the perception of nursing students of a public university and a religious-based university on spiritual care. METHOD: The research used the descriptive-comparative method. 141 nursing students were recruited through consecutive sampling technique in a university in Depok, West Java and a religious-based university in Jakarta, Indonesia. Data were collected using the Spiritual Care Giving Scale (SCGS) questionnaire. RESULTS: The result showed that the participants had a good perception about spiritual care with the mean score of 171.39. However, there was no significant difference in perception regarding spiritual care between nursing students from the public university and the religion-based university (p value=0.612). CONCLUSIONS: The perception on spiritual care of nursing students was fairly similar regardless of the type of their university. This may be related with the comparable religious and cultural backgrounds in the two settings, as well as the nursing education curriculum implemented nationally, yet it takes further studies to examine such factors.