Assessing Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Spirituality in the domain of providing health care

Theoretical starting points: Every patient has a legitimacy to receive spiritual care within their health care, while a health care professional has a responsibility and obligation to provide it. Methods: The goal of this research was to determine students' opinions on the matters of spirituality within receiving health care as well as to question the correlation between sociodemographic characteristics, and the difference between students' opinions towards the dimension of spirituality. The survey was taken by 161 students of University of Zagreb, aged 20,86 +/- 3,81. For the purpose of this study, a validated version of SSCRS (Spirituality and spiritual care rating scale,) questionnaire was used to assess perception and opinions on spiritual care. Results: According to the results of the research students have a positive stance when it comes to the spiritual dimension, regardless of their field of study. Most of the students believe health care professionals that have completed their formal education, to be well acquainted with providing spiritual care, however, the said students included in the research had no training on the matter during their formal education. Discussion and conclusion: High quality health care requires health care professionals to be prepared both in their professional fields and the spiritual dimension, and to accommodate to this request, it is necessary to conform the curriculum to the domain of providing spiritual care.