How emotional contagion shapes spiritual care competence: Insights from a cross-sectional study on intensive care nurses

Abstract

Background: Intensive care units (ICUs) are environments where nurses are open to emotional interactions because of complex structures and dynamic relationships. Nurses' susceptibility to emotional contagion and their spiritual care competence may affect the quality of care by influencing their ability to manage and respond to the emotional dynamics present in these environments. Aim: This study aimed to determine the level of emotional contagion and spiritual care competence in intensive care nurses. Study Design: This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted with 199 nurses working in the ICUs of a training and research hospital in Turkey. The data were collected between December 2021 and June 2022 using the Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) and the Spiritual Care Competence Scale (SCCS). Results: The mean score of the nurses was 50.29 ± 15.36 on the ECS and 90.29 ± 29.53 on the SCCS. A statistically significant difference was found between the ECS and SCCS and gender, marital status, weekly working hours and some approaches about spiritual care (p