Introduction: Nursing is a profession that frequently exposes nurses to significant physical and psychological demands, which is why compassion fatigue and burnout are common among them. Spirituality can act as a health-promoting factor that helps preserve a sense of meaning and strengthens inner peace, connectedness and personal values. Nevertheless, it often remains overlooked and insufficiently researched in nursing. Purpose: We aim to determine what spirituality means to nurses and what role it plays in their coping with stress, compassion fatigue and burnout. Methods: We used a descriptive research method with a review of scientific and professional literature in Slovenian and English, published between 2016 and 2026, with the exception of one literature unit. The search was conducted in the databases COBIB.si, CINAHL, MedLine/PubMed and Cochrane Library. Slovenian literature was searched through the DiKUL search engine, the COBISS.Si system, Google Scholar and the archive of the journal Obzornik zdravstvene nege. In the search we used the following phrases: spirituality OR spiritual well-being OR well-being OR emotional well-being OR spiritual health OR spiritual self-care OR spirituality workplace OR spiritual response OR spiritual climate OR perception of spirituality OR understanding of spirituality OR spiritual orientation AND nurse OR nursing staff AND occupational stress OR burnout OR compassion fatigue OR resilience. We included eighteen literature units in the final analysis. Results: We found that there is no uniform understanding of spirituality among nurses, as it ranges from a religious to a broader, existential conception, which is significantly influenced by the cultural and religious environment and by competence in the field of spiritual care. In most studies spirituality has a protective role, since higher spiritual well-being is associated with lower burnout and less compassion fatigue. In this regard, it is important to distinguish between spiritual growth, which improves well-being, and spiritual distress, which increases burnout. However, its protective effect is not universal and weakens under the greatest workloads. In some studies the association was not confirmed. Discussion and conclusion: Spirituality is therefore not a self-evident factor, but a resource that operates under certain conditions and also depends on organisational support and the work environment. It is important to raise awareness of the nurse's role in caring for herself and not only for patients, and of the importance of education in spiritual care. In the Slovenian setting, where spirituality is still often equated with religiosity, it is reasonable to research this field in more detail and to strengthen it systematically.
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