Spiritual Beliefs and Divine Motivation Among Disaster-Volunteering Nurses: A Qualitative Study

To explore how spirituality and divine motivation inspire nurses to volunteer and shape their actions in challenging situations.

A qualitative study using a conventional content analysis was conducted.

In-depth interviews were conducted between September 2024 and March 2025 with 19 nurses selected through purposive sampling with maximum variation. All participants had engaged in disaster volunteering on at least one occasion. Data were analysed using the approach proposed by Lindgren, Lundman and Graneheim to identify key themes reflecting nurses' spiritual experiences during voluntary disaster response.

Three overarching themes emerged from the nurses' experiences: a spirituality-oriented worldview, spirituality and sacredness in voluntary nursing and spirituality in the volunteering process. Nurses perceived disaster volunteering as a spiritually meaningful act rooted in faith and moral obligation, transforming it from a purely professional responsibility into an expression of worship and personal growth.

The findings suggest that spirituality may play an important role in motivating and sustaining disaster volunteering among nurses in this context. Incorporating attention to spiritual and culturally sensitive dimensions in disaster nursing may support nurses' resilience, engagement and quality of care during disaster response.

Disaster nursing practice should recognise spirituality as a potential source of motivation, resilience and psychological support for nurses. Disaster preparedness programs may incorporate spiritual coping, ethical reflection, resilience-building and stress-management strategies alongside practical response skills. Nursing managers can support nurses by providing access to psychological and spiritual support services, including counselling, peer debriefing and referral options when needed. Culturally responsive approaches should be integrated into care to respect diverse beliefs among nurses and affected populations. Recruitment and retention strategies should acknowledge multiple sources of motivation, including professional, altruistic, and, for some nurses, spiritual factors, to better support sustained engagement in disaster volunteering.

Patients and members of the public were not involved in the design or conduct of this research.