6 6 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 7 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 1 opposed to patients of different religions. Other domains of posttraumatic growth were not significant in the context of individual religions. It was shown that cancer survivors professing Christianity and Reformed Christianity reported significantly higher levels of spiritual changes related to posttraumatic growth that unbelieving patients. When experiencing stressful events, such as an oncological disease, people often turn to spirituality. Religious coping that can also include the experiencing of spirituality was significant in the context of experiencing of difficult situations. It was confirmed that positive forms of religious coping correlated with positive psychological adaptation to stress (Ano and Vasconcelles 2005, 11). Better adaptation is related to several coping methods, such as benevolent religious reappraisals, religious forgiveness/purification, and seeking religious support. Poorer adjustment was associated with reappraisals of God’s powers, spiritual discontent, and punishing God reappraisals (Pargament, Koenig and Perez 2000, 519). Cancer survivors professing Christianity, Reformed Christianity and other religions showed significantly higher perception of the importance of spirituality and practicing of spirituality as opposed to atheist cancer survivors. Unbelieving cancer survivors showed significantly lower perception of the importance of spirituality as well as practicing of spirituality. People who survived cancer with religious faith reported significantly higher spiritual changes as opposed to patients who survived cancer without it. In their study, Boleková and Chlebcová (2019, 34) pointed out that cancer survivors assessed the importance of spiritual aspect of life as very high (median of 6.5 on the scale from 1 to 7), while practicing of religious faith was assessed as less important (median of 4 on the scale from 1 to 7). Experiencing of spirituality represents significant changes in physical and mental health, experiencing of emotionality as well as in religious practices (Pargament, Koenig and Perez 2000, 519), gives meaning to negative events and provides consolation through the members of a community. 5 Conclusion It can be concluded that the importance and practicing of spirituality have positive impact on posttraumatic growth in cancer survivors. Therefore, it is necessary to include practicing of faith and spiritual aspect of life in the treatment of oncological patients. Patients should be supported in spiritual activities. It is recommended to adopt and develop interventions, which would include the spiritual aspect, thus contributing to posttraumatic growth with the aim of coping with an oncological disease. There are several limitations to this study. Firstly, cross-sectional design limits full comprehension of mutual relations between the posttraumatic growth and experiencing of spirituality in cancer survivors. Secondly, deeper exploration of spirituality and religiousness would provide better insight in their mutual relations with posttraumatic growth and contribute to deeper comprehension in this area. Notes [1] In the description of sample, N are shown, taking into account missing data in categorical variables. [2] Supplementary materials to the study including data, analytical code, and additional materials are available at osf.io/59zmp. Acknowledgement The study originated as a partial outcome of the grant VEGA no. 1/0305/18.
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