An Overview of the Status of Spiritual Care in Nursing Education in Iran and the World

Abstract

Spirituality is an essential component of health. However, evidence suggests that patients’ spiritual dimension has received less attention, possibly due to the unpreparedness of nurses to provide spiritual care. This study aimed to investigate the context of spiritual care in nursing education and to review the necessary preparations to provide spiritual care, as well as to examine the effective models and methods of spiritual care education in nursing. A comprehensive and in-depth review of the texts was conducted using national and international databases including SID, Magiran, Barakat, PubMed, ProQuest, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science and Google Scholar, spanning the years 2016–2021 and using the keywords “Spiritual care”; “Spiritual Curriculum”; “Spirituality”; “Religion”; “Nursing curriculum”; “Nursing students”; “Nursing educator”; “Nursing education”; “Education”; “Nursing”; and “Curriculum.” Out of 743 obtained articles, 39 were enrolled. The results showed that the basis of spiritual care in nursing education is inappropriate and the necessary preparations for providing proper spiritual care are not well provided. Although various models and variants have been presented to educate spiritual care, they are not organised throughout the students’ curriculum. Using a curriculum includes spirituality, spiritual awareness, and spiritual care, as well as organising it throughout the student curriculum, which can be the first step in providing decent spiritual care. Therefore, it is worthwhile to take effective steps in promoting spiritual care by solving the existing challenges and reducing the gap between theoretical and clinical education.