Abstract: Objective: To investigate the spiritual care competence of nurses in aged care facilities and analyze related influencing factors. Methods: Convenience sampling was used and totally 185 nurses were investigated with general information questionnaire and the Chinese version of Spiritual Care Ability Scale. Results: The whole average score of spiritual care competence was (2.98±0.45). Among the six dimensions, the "communication ability" dimension got the highest score (3.67±0.73), while the dimension of "ability of professional development and quality improvement" scored lowest (2.38±0.61). Analysis of multivariate linear regression showed educational background, nursing age of aged-care and spiritual care training experience were associated with nurses' spiritual care competence (P<0.01). Conclusion: The spiritual care competence of aged care facilities nurses was in lower middle level. Nursing managers should create more opportunities for nurses to participate in spiritual care training, in order to promote their spiritual care ability, as well as enhancing the quality of elderly care service, and providing reference for enhancing their spiritual care ability.

Key words: aged care facilities; nurses; spiritual care competence; influencing factors