168 Spirituality Studies and Arredondo Jr. 2004, 66) resonates only for spiritually engaged people. Regarding transcendent coping, an item like, “after a period of difficulties the deeper significance of my problems will be revealed to me”, from the Receptive Coping Scale (Alma et al. 2004, 104), implies an openness, trust in transcendence that reveals the meaning of the situation. Such an item aligns with the objective of identifying questionnaires that comprehensively address both spiritual connectedness and spiritual coping. However, an item like, “I am convinced that finding access to a spiritual source can have a positive influence on my illness” from the SpREUK questionnaire Spiritual and Religious Attitudes in Dealing with Illness (Büssing 2010, 11), resonates only for spiritually engaged people. The examples of the results of item formulation regarding vertical transcendence are shown in Table 2. Only items with full agreement about accurate usability as rated by three of the authors are shown. Table 2 summarizes twelve items related to spiritual connectedness and four items related to spiritual coping as suitable for inclusion. Most items identify transcendence as an abstract yet experiential phenomenon, characterized by a receptive stance toward it. 4 Discussion and Conclusion The aim of this review was to explore to what extent existing questionnaires, or their subscales or items, assess aspects of spirituality within the context of coping research, in a way suitable for both secular and religious individuals. We assessed whether the items fulfilled specific criteria: grounded in experience, low in cognitive complexity, applicable to both religious and secular populations, clearly articulated, and independent of educational background. This study focused on spirituality as connectedness, with particular attention to spiritual coping in relation to transcendence, representing the vertical axis of spirituality. Of the twenty-nine questionnaires reviewed, none fully met the purpose of this review. However, three questionnaires came close: Spiritual Attitude and Involvement List (de Jager Meezenbroek et al. 2012), the Spiritual Scale (Delaney 2005) and the Spiritual Orientation Inventory (Elkins et al. 1988). These three questionnaires primarily focus on spiritual connectedness, but they lack items on spiritual coping, particularly in relation to vertical transcendence and nature. Although several questionnaires included items addressing spiritual connectedness to nature, none contained items that explicitly capture spiritual coping through nature. The absence of such items should not be interpreted as evidence that nature cannot facilitate spiritual coping. Rather, it indicates that this dimension was not captured within the scope of the current study’s review. A qualitative study by Ahmadi and Ahmadi (2015, 1180) with 2,355 people with cancer in Sweden showed that nature has been the most important coping method. Survey respondents were asked to choose between twenty-four different statements that they felt helped them feel better when they felt stressed, sad, or depressed during or after their illness. The qualitative theme labeled as “That nature is an important resource to help you cope with your illness” proved to reflect a prominent comment. The explanation for this result was found in the tendencies to seek spiritual closeness with God or a supreme power that makes nature an available source for coping. As such, nature is a significant but underrepresented domain in spiritual coping questionnaires. Within this study the focus is on spirituality as connectedness and spiritual coping with respect to the transcendence, the vertical axe of spirituality. Detailed analyses of items addressing spiritual connectedness to transcendence and spiritual coping reveal that transcendence is predominantly conceptualized in abstract terms. The formulation of
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