Effect of Spiritual Self-care Education on the Resilience of Nurses Working in the Intensive Care Units Dedicated to COVID-19 Patients in Iran

Abstract

Objective: Nurses experienced many psychological problems during the COVID-19 outbreak. Considering that spirituality can be a strong factor in controlling stressful situations, this study aims to investigate the effect of spiritual self-care education on the resilience of nurses working in intensive care units (ICUs) dedicated to patients with COVID-19 in Iran. Methods: This experimental study was conducted on 64 nurses working in ICUs dedicated to patients with COVID-19 in Ziaeian Hospital in Tehran, Iran in 2021 who were selected by a census method and then randomly (by coin toss) assigned to the intervention (n=32) and control (n=32) groups. The intervention group received the spiritual self-care education at 6 sessions of 45 minutes every other day. Data were collected using a demographic form and the Connor-Davidson resilience scale and entered in SPSS software, version 25 and analyzed using independent t-test, paired t-test, and chi-square test. The significant level was set at 0.05. Results: The Mean±SD score of resilience before the education in the intervention and control groups were 48.0±5.28 and 46.44±6.05, respectively. The difference was not statistically significant (P=0.275). After the education, the mean of resilience in the intervention and control groups were 74.65±3.35, 49.38±6.49 respectively. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.0001). Conclusion: It is suggested that spiritual self-care education should be provided to nurses in ICUs dedicated to patients with COVID-19 to improve their resilience and thus help them provide better services to patients.