Descriptions of Spirituality among the American Public: The Relationship between Spiritual Salience and Specific Spiritual Understandings

Social work's ethical and professional standards underscore the importance of engaging spirituality in practice settings, but relatively little research has appeared in the profession's literature equipping practitioners to address client spirituality. To alleviate this gap, this nationally representative study determined (a) the prevalence of 14 different understandings or descriptions of spirituality among American adults and (b) the relationship between the self-ascribed salience or importance of spirituality (and religion) and specific understandings of spirituality. The most widely endorsed description of what spirituality offered respondents was peace (65.9 percent) and the least widely endorsed was structure (23.5 percent). Self-reported importance of spirituality (but not religion) was positively associated with all 14 understandings of spirituality. The results suggest that practitioners should incorporate a measure of spiritual salience into their initial brief assessment. In situations where the results of the brief assessment suggest a more in-depth exploration of spirituality is indicated, the understandings of spirituality discussed in this study provide practitioners with a working template of specific perceptions that can be explored with clients and, potentially, leveraged to assist clients ameliorate the challenges they experience.