Abstract: Objective To investigate the status quo of cognition on spiritual care among nursing students, and analyze its influence factors. Methods A total of 2,057 nursing students from 5 universities and colleges in Tianjin were selected by using convenience sampling method from November 2020 to April 2021. And the survey was conducted by using general information questionnaire, the Chinese Version of the Spiritual Care-giving Scale, the Spiritual Health Scale Short Form, the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-nursing Student for questionnaire survey. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the influence factors of spiritual care cognition. Results The total score of spiritual care cognition was 171.22±25.11 and the average score for all entries was 5.04±0.74. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that nationality, education background, birth place, needs for spiritual care training or courses, spiritual health and empathy ability were main influencing factors of spiritual care cognition (P<0.05), explaining 43.4% of the total variation. Conclusion The cognition on spiritual care of 2,057 nursing students in Tianjin is at a medium level and needs to be further improved. It is suggested that spiritual care education according to the individualized characteristics and differences of nursing students is significant, such as improving the spiritual care education system and curriculum assessment standards, regularly inviting clinical teachers or experts to deliver lectures or training, and innovating the theory and clinical practice teaching mode, so as to improve the level of spiritual care cognition among nursing students in multiple ways.

Key words: nursing student, spiritual care cognition, spiritual health, empathy ability, influencing factor