Religious and existential well-being among nursing students in anambra state, nigeria

Abstract

Spirituality is a significant concept for the discipline of nursing with substantial influence on holistic care of patients. The purpose of the study was to investigate the status of Spiritual Well-Being (SWB) among nursing students in public Schools of Nursing in Anambra State, Nigeria.  A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 228 nursing students based in three government Schools of Nursing in Anambra State, Nigeria.  A 20 item Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWS) comprising of 10 questions each on religious and existential wellbeing sub-scales was adapted for the study. Internal consistency reliability of the instrument using the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was 0.93. Ethical approval was obtained from Nnamdi Azikwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH) ethical committee. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Chi-Square and Pearson correlation analysis were done to verify association between variables using SPSS version 21 for Windows.  Probability value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The mean age of respondents was 22 years. Overall, 55.1% reported moderate level of spirituality compared with 44.9% who had high level of spirituality. Nursing students’ average spiritual well-being (SWB) score was 97.7. SWB was significantly related to the level of study of respondents (p= 0.001). A significant strong positive correlation was found between Religious Well-Being (RWB) and Existential Well-Being (p=0.001; r=.697). The study has shown that nursing students in public Schools of Nursing in Anambra State, self-reported moderate level of spiritual wellbeing (SWB). Educational interventions are required to improve nursing students’ religious and existential well-being for the ultimate purpose of promoting holistic nursing care.