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On “spirituality,” “religion,” and “religions”: A concept analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2010

J. Mark Lazenby
J. Mark Lazenby*
Affiliation:
School of Nursing, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Mark Lazenby, 100 Church Street South, P.O. Box 9740, New Haven, CT 06536-0740. E-mail: mark.lazenby@yale.edu
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Abstract

Objective:

With increasing research on the role of religion and spirituality in the well-being of cancer patients, it is important to define distinctly the concepts that researchers use in these studies.

Method:

Using the philosophies of Frege and James, this essay argues that the terms “religion” and “spirituality” denote the same concept, a concept that is identified with the Peace/Meaning subscale of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy — Spiritual Well-being Scale (FACIT-Sp).

Results:

The term “Religions” denotes the concept under which specific religious systems are categorized.

Significance of results:

This article shows how muddling these concepts causes researchers to make claims that their findings do not support, and it ends in suggesting that future research must include universal measures of the concept of religion/spirituality in order to investigate further the role of interventions in the spiritual care of people living with cancer.

Keywords

SpiritualityReligionCancerFACIT-SPRCOPE
Type
Review Articles
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 469 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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