Empirical studies have identified significant links between religion and spirituality and health. The reasons for these associations, however, are unclear. Typically, religion and spirituality have been measured by global indices (e.g., frequency of church attendance, self-rated religiousness and spirituality) that do not specify how or why religion and spirituality affect health. The authors h...

BACKGROUND Increasing interest in the role of spirituality in clinical care has begun to affect educational programs. This study evaluated the current status of training in spirituality and health care in family medicine residency programs. METHODS We surveyed 138 randomly selected US family medicine residencies regarding their spirituality and health care curriculum. A response rate of 73% (...

Spirituality" has often been framed in social science research as an alternative to organized "religion," implicitly or explicitly extending theoretical arguments about the privatization of religion. This article uses in-depth qualitative data from a religiously-diverse U.S. sample to argue that this either-or distinction not only fails to capture the empirical reality of American religion, but...

AIM The aim of this article is to clarify the concept of spirituality for future nursing research. BACKGROUND Previous concept analyses of spirituality have mostly reviewed the conceptual literature with little consideration of the empirical literature. The literature reviewed in prior concept analyses extends from 1972 to 2005, with no analysis conducted in the past 9 years. DESIGN Rodgers...

OBJECTIVE This study examined (a) occupational therapists' attitudes about spirituality in practice on the basis of whether they identified themselves as religious, (b) whether their personal definition of spirituality related to their religiousness, (c) whether their definition related to their attitude about spirituality in practice, and (d) the methods they used to address the spiritual need...

Leadership that draws upon Ignatian wisdom has the potential to heal divides which plague our local, national and global communities. This chapter weaves together elements of Spirituality, critical leadership studies, feminist theory, race concepts propose a conception is liberatory for both leader those being led. Drawing sources as well contemporary social science theorists, it illustrates re...

This study used a qualitative descriptive research design to discover the relevance and meaning of spirituality in the lives of 130 urban low-income pregnant women by asking the open-ended question, "How does your faith or spirituality affect your pregnancy if at all?" Forty-seven percent of the women in this study described how spirituality affected their pregnancy positively, 45% described th...

Spirituality" has often been framed in social science research as an alternative to organized "religion," implicitly or explicitly extending theoretical arguments about the privatization of religion. This article uses in-depth qualitative data from a religiously-diverse U.S. sample to argue that this either-or distinction not only fails to capture the empirical reality of American religion, but...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To determine whether the perceived level of spirituality in family caregivers of patients with primary malignant brain tumors (PMBTs) changes across the disease trajectory. DESIGN Ongoing descriptive, longitudinal study. SETTING Southwestern Pennsylvania. SAMPLE 50 family caregivers of patients with PMBT. METHODS Caregivers and care recipients were recruited at time o...