Introduction: Spiritual health is one of the important components of health. The relationship between Spiritual Health and Happiness as a sense of personal satisfaction of life, especially among students as future managers of communities is very important. The aim of this study, which was carried out in 2015, was to investigate the relationship between spiritual health and happiness in nursing students.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among nursing students of Yazd University of Medical Sciences and Islamic Azad Universities in Yazd. Sampling was performed using census method and samples of this study consisted of 550 nursing students. The data were collected via two questionnaires: 1. Spiritual Health Questionnaires of Ellison with three dimensions of cognition, emotion, and action; 2. Oxford Happiness and Life Satisfaction Questionnaire with five subscales of life satisfaction, self-esteem, subjective well-being, satisfaction, and positive mood. Previous studies have confirmed the validity and reliability of these questionnaires. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 20 using descriptive statistics (frequency) and analytical statistics (Pearson’s correlation coefficient, t-test, linear regression).

Results: The mean grade scores of "spiritual health" and "happiness" in nursing students were 95.04 ± 16.03 and 45.46 ± 15.67 at Azad Medical University, and 98.14 ± 13.95 and 50.23 ± 15.39 at Yazd University of Medical Sciences, respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between spiritual health and happiness of students. The Correlation coefficients between spiritual health and happiness in Islamic Azad University and Yazd University of Medical Sciences were r = 0.63, P < 0.001 and r = 0.76, P < 0.001. There was a significant correlation between all the dimensions of spiritual health and happiness. All the calculations were performed at 95% confidence level. The greatest correlation belonged to emotion and the least correlation to action.

Conclusions: Spiritual health and happiness in nursing students at both universities were above average. There was a significant difference between spiritual health and happiness of students between the two universities. In other words, higher spiritual health increased the students' happiness level. Therefore, planning to promote spiritual health of students to increase their happiness is essential.