Adaptation and implementation of the European matrix for teaching spiritual care to nursing students

Background The World Health Organization’s concept of health currently comprises eight dimensions: emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, fnancial, occupational, and social. Including the spiritual dimension [1] represents an essential milestone in recognizing its positive impact on health, well-being, and quality of life. In this sense, nursing students’ acquisition and development of spiritual care skills are required, particularly in undergraduate nursing degrees. Also, the evidence demonstrates the positive relationship between spiritual education and spiritual competencies, emphasizing the need for spiritual education as an integral and regular part of the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Regardless of this evidence, the educational strategies for improving and developing undergraduate nursing students’ skills and competencies are scarce and should be urgently considered as nurses and midwives still report feeling unprepared for providing spiritual care. Recently, the EPICC project (Nurses’ and Midwives’ Competence in Providing Spiritual Care through Innovative Education and Compassionate Care)[2] has been implemented as a turning point in nursing education for spiritual care and spirituality, through a systematic, consensual, and efective response, by involving multiple partners and experts from diferent European countries. Portugal has been a participant in that Erasmus-funded project. Materials and methods This Ph.D. project concerns the translation, adaptation, and implementation of the EPICC matrix. First, a translation and cultural adaptation process will be conducted according to the core project guidelines [3]. Then the matrix for education and assessing spiritual care competencies will be implemented in a pilot study in a Portuguese nursing school involving undergraduate nursing students. Results The core project guidelines represent V stage of the cross-cultural adaptation process. The preliminary results point to the beginning of stage III with the back translation of the synthesized written version of the EPICC Spiritual Care Education Standard and EPICC Spiritual Care Competency Self-assessment tool. Stage I (initial translation with written reports of each – T1 and T2) and Stage II (synthesis of the translations to version T12) of the translation and cultural adaptation of the EPICC matrix are already concluded. Conclusions This innovative project could help improve Portuguese schools’ nursing curricula from an evidence-based perspective.