Nurse spirituality and intention to leave nursing during COVID pandemic: Cross-sectional data from five countries

Purpose: To investigate how nurse spiritual responses (as both struggle and moral distress, and as growth) were associated with the intent to leave nursing among nurses in Iran, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United States. Methods: Data were cross-sectionally collected during the first half of 2022 from convenience samples. Instruments included scales measuring turnover intention, trauma symptoms, religious/spiritual struggle, moral injury, post-traumatic or spiritual growth. The scales were originally developed in English and translated/back-translated for use in Peru, Korea, and Iran. Participants included practicing Registered Nurses from each country; the sample from each country comprised 12.5% - 34.1% of the total sample of 1,939 nurses. Analysis completed with this dataset verified our hypothesis that spiritual struggle, moral injury, and posttraumatic spiritual growth would to some degree be correlated with the outcome of intention to leave nursing.