Attitudes and beliefs regarding spiritual care. A survey of cancer nurses.

Why nurses neglect spiritual care issues remains unclear. Therefore, a questionnaire designed to assess oncology nurse clinicians' attitudes and beliefs about spiritual care was mailed to a stratified, random sample of 700 Oncology Nursing Society members within the United States. Data from the 181 respondents were analyzed using descriptive and multivariate statistics (for quantitative items) and content analysis (for essay questions). Analysis of data revealed both a positive regard for spiritual care within nursing, and relationships between beliefs and attitudes about spiritual care and self-reported spiritually, religiosity, ethnicity, work role, and education. Recommendations are for inclusion of theoretical and practical aspects of spiritual care in nursing education and for further investigation of nurses' attitudes and beliefs regarding spiritual care.