Using the Theory of Reasoned Action and Self- Efficacy to Explore Nursing Students’ Spiritual Health Promotion

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to apply the theory of reasoned action and self-efficacy in order to explore nursing students’ behavioral intention and predict its effects on the practice of spiritual health promotion. Design: An exploratory research design was adopted. Methods: In total, 191 5th-year nursing students participated in the curriculum on professional care. A self-reported open-ended questionnaire was used to collect the data. Both investigator triangulation and content analysis were used for the data analysis. Results: The results of this study showed that 75% of all of the themes represented nursing student’s behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and self-efficacy to predict the effect of behavioral intention on the practice of spiritual health promotion. Conclusions: Following the results of this study, the aim is to build a structured questionnaire including items on behavioral beliefs, evaluations of behavioral outcomes, normative beliefs, motivation to comply, attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention to survey nursing students on the practice of spiritual health promotion in the future. Clinical Relevance: In further studies, nursing students will be surveyed on their behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and selfefficacy to predict the effect of their behavioral intention on the practice of spiritual health promotion. Furthermore, nursing students may increase their self-reported levels of physical, psychological, spiritual, and social health promotion to help clinical patients.