Spirituality Studies 169 Thijs Huijs et al. these items suggests that a receptive attitude toward the transcendent, outlined as an abstract entity or impersonal force, is intended to support trust as a means of coping with adversity. Even though it is experienced as abstract, the perceived connection results in confidence or strength to successfully cope with adversity. These findings suggest that the vertical dimension of spirituality through spiritual coping can be meaningfully examined with comprehensively formulated items in a general population. In order to adequately reflect the vertical dimension of spirituality, it seems that questions for highly educated participants and questions for people with personal experience must be included in the questionnaire. As a preliminary result, the authors identified a selection of sixteen items that covered a range of thematic aspects with respect to specific content, as well as that had face value usability in terms of clarity. Twelve items belonged to the series of “spiritual connection” and four to the series of “spiritual coping” items. The items should integrate a deeper conceptual or spiritual framework, while simultaneously emphasizing personal, accessible experiences. One strength of this study is its grounding in widely accepted definitions of spirituality (Elkins et al. 1988, 10; Nolan et al. 2011, 88; Puchalski et al. 2009, 887). These definitions provide the basis for assessing spiritual connection and spiritual coping. This allows for the classification of items into five components: meaning of life and connectedness with oneself, with others, nature, and transcendence. The connectedness elements are also used for spiritual coping. A second strength is the assessment of the questionnaires’ suitability for both religious and secular people. None of the surveys fully met the purpose of this review. However, further analysis and item selection would allow for the development of a questionnaire suitable for both religious and secular people. A limitation of the study is that the first part of the screening was carried out by one researcher, which may lead to subjective bias. This created the possibility that some potentially appropriate questionnaires may or may not have been included. The final part of the screening and coding was carried out and discussed within the research team by three scientists. Another limitation is the exclusion of non-English questionnaires. As a result, potentially suitable questionnaires may have been missed, which could affect the completeness of the study. Another limitation concerns the study’s ambition to identify scales and items that are accessible to both secular and religious individuals. Terminology such as spiritual and transcendent was considered potentially problematic, as these terms may primarily resonate with individuals who identify as spiritual rather than those with a more traditionally religious orientation. For individuals from stricter religious backgrounds, meaning-making systems may rely on a different set of idioms or conceptual frameworks. As such, alternative language may be necessary to effectively engage these populations in discussions related to spirituality. The present study can provide the basis for creating an appropriate spiritual coping questionnaire for religious and secular people. Selecting the most appropriate items related to spiritual connection and spiritual coping and testing them within a general population, at least partly secularized, may be the first step in testing such a questionnaire. Acknowledgements No empirical data were generated, as the article constitutes a review of existing questionnaires rather than an original data collection study. The authors have no competing interests to declare.
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