Does the nursing students' perceived level of compassion correlate with affect their perception of spiritual care?

Background: It is an important competence for nurses to develop compassion emotions during their education. Studies emphasize compassion as one of the most important components of spiritual care, suggesting that spiritual care begins with compassionate relationships. However, there is no study about the relationship between these two concepts in nursing students.Objective: To determine the level of perceived compassion and perceived spiritual care in nursing students and to reveal the effect of compassion on perceived spiritual care.Design: Cross-sectional study.Setting: The faculty of health sciences of a state university in Turkey.Participants: Nursing students at the faculty where the study was conducted in the fall academic semester of the 2022-2023 academic year.Methods: The population of the study consisted of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade nursing students at the faculty of health sciences of a state university in the fall academic year of the 2022-2023 academic year (N = 720). The study was completed with a total of 440 nursing students. Data were collected online using a sociodemographic information form, the Compassion Scale and the Spiritual Care-Giving Scale between October 10 and November 20, 2022 via Google Forms.Results: The students scored 98.72 +/- 12.16 (high) on the Compassion Scale and 146.47 +/- 28.92 (high) on the Spiritual Care Giving Scale. There was a significant positive correlation between their perceived compassion and spiritual care giving mean scores (r = 0.440; p < 0.01). The explanatory power of the regression model was 0.292, suggesting that 29.2 % of the variance of spiritual care-giving can be explained by compassion.Conclusion: The students reported high levels of perceived compassion and perceived spiritual care. Compassion is an important component in the formation of perceived spiritual care in nursing students. Further studies in diverse populations will be useful for the comparisons of relevant results.