Abstract
In order to measure a wide spectrum of organized and private religious, spiritual, existential and philosophical practices, the SpREUK-P (SpREUK is the German language acronym of “Spirituality/Religiosity and Coping with Illness”) questionnaire was developed as a generic instrument. To account for the fact that institutional religiosity declines, not only in Europe, and to explore the alternative use of various existing esoteric and spiritual resources, the instrument also addresses non-religious forms of spiritual practices. Previously, it was tested in a more secular context and was found to be of relevance for atheistic/agnostic individuals. Now we intended to apply the instrument to 275 Polish individuals with chronic diseases (100% Catholics, 74% women, mean age 56 ± 16 years). The factorial structure of the SpREUK-P’s Polish version was similar to the primary version, but lacked an exclusive “spiritual (mind-body) practices” subscale. Factor analysis revealed four main factors, which would explain 67% of the variance, i.e., religious practices (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90), humanistic practices (alpha = 0.87), existentialistic practices (alpha = 0.80) and gratitude/awe (alpha = 0.80). The correlation pattern underlines construct validity. Interestingly, in Polish individuals, existentialistic practices did not significantly differ between religious and non-religious individuals (nor between men and women), while all other forms of spiritual practices did differ significantly.
Highlights
There are several data that indicate that spirituality/religiosity (SpR) can be associated with better mental and physical health, better coping, higher well-being, etc. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]
The interpretation of the underlying studies with respect to health-outcomes is not always easy, because the studies often use a heterogeneous set of instruments to measure complex constructs, such as spirituality and religiosity
It is useful to distinguish between spirituality and religiosity
Summary
There are several data that indicate that spirituality/religiosity (SpR) can be associated with better mental and physical health, better coping, higher well-being, etc. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. There are several data that indicate that spirituality/religiosity (SpR) can be associated with better mental and physical health, better coping, higher well-being, etc. Spirituality is the “experiential core” (content) of ritualized religiosity (form), but, a complex construct, which involves an individual’s search for meaning and purpose in life, which can be interpreted either in a religious or in a secular context [18]. Spirituality is a complex and multi-dimensional construct and can be defined as an open and individual experiential approach in the search for meaning and purpose in life (content); in contrast, religion is an institutional and culturally determined approach, which organizes the collective experiences of people (faith) into a closed system of beliefs, rituals and practices (form) [18]
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