The present study aimed to identify the opinions of nursing students in relation to the interface between health, spirituality and religiosity and the information provided during their undergraduate formation. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2011 (May to October) through interviews on 120 students from a nursing school (82.1%) located at São Paulo State, Brazil. From these, 76% believe that spirituality have an influence on health. However, only 10% consider themselves very prepared to address patients' spiritual aspects and 54% stated that university education does not provide enough information to develop this competence. The fear of imposing religious beliefs is the main barrier related to this issue. Most students (83%) indicated that issues related to health and spirituality should be part of the nursing curricula. Therefore, it's necessary to implement learning scenarios during their academic training to help students in spiritual care.
Spirituality; Religion; Nursing; Teaching
