Perception on spiritual well-being in nursing

Background: To know nursing students' perception of spiritual well-being respond to the need of make human care values visible, during the process of university training. Objective: To determine the participants' perceptions about spiritual well-being in a sample of students from the Faculty of nursing from Universidad Nacional de San Agustin (Arequipa, Peru) Methods: Descriptive quantitative study with a sample of 198 nursing students, who were doing clinical practice as part of their undergraduate training. The SHALOM instrument was used, accordingly with John Fisher's propositions, as well as characterization slip. The analysis was conducted by using descriptive, central tendency and dispersion statistics, as well as non-parametric tests for inferential analysis. Results: the majority of students were female, single marital status, with an average age of 20.4 years. Competency-based training predominated and moderate levels of spiritual well-being were observed on each of the following categories: spiritual health ideal, spiritual help and "how do you feel". Furthermore, statistically significant differences were observed between student's perception of each of the abovementioned categories in the personal, environmental, communal and transcendental domains. Conclusions: It is determinant to include spiritual component and spiritual caring as integrative elements throughout nursery school training. It highlights the need of promoting a spiritual well-being practice as the central element in nursing care.