There is some evidence of the relationship between spirituality and quality of life, but there are few bibliographic references on these constructs for patients suffering from mental illness; thus, this study was aimed at revealing the possible role of spiritual outlooks as a protective factor in these individuals. The sample consisted of 96 Portuguese psychiatric patients, selected from a psychiatric hospital and assessed based on parameters for quality of life, spirituality and mindfulness. The data support some theories about the nature of the spirituality. Spiritual beliefs are poorly correlated with the quality of life index, and there is a moderate association between these beliefs and some aspects of mindfulness. It is suggested that a spiritual outlook of psychiatric patients should be taken into account in psychological interventions.

The present article is specifically devoted to summarizing the literature on children’s emerging spirituality, so as to provide a synthesis of traditional and current understandings of spiritual development. To this end, it pulls together all the disparate yet interconnected theoretical positionings on this dubious construct. Specifically, the first section explains the importance of spiritual experience in children’s lives, as depicted in statutory requirements, and evaluates ongoing efforts to demarcate spirituality from—or to locate spirituality within—religious education. Subsequently, a critical overview of selected theoretical taxonomies tracing spiritual progression during the early school years is presented. Similarities and differences are contemplated, followed by considerations on how these may inform curriculum implemen-tation decisions and how they might advance ongoing efforts to instill spiritual literacy in public schooling.

The Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire (SWBQ) was widely studied as a psychological instrument; yet, there is a lack of its use in non-religious research.  This study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the SWBQ in a sample of practising believers, non-practising believers, sceptics and atheists. A total number of 279 participants aged between 17 and 69 (M=24.42, SD=9.463) completed the SWBQ and socio-demographic measurements. The SWBQ’s factorial structure proved to be different from the original version, suggesting inconsistencies between content validity and factorial validity. Environmental Domain was the factor with the greatest statistical weight in the scale's total variance. SWBQ’s metrical properties are contrary to a synergic spirituality.

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The present study aims to compare measures of spirituality and religiosity in the experience of the locus of control. For this purpose a scale of non-theistic spirituality (Spiritual Awareness Scale) was developed to better distinguish spirituality from religiosity. The sample included 279 participants, 86 males (30.8%) and 193 females (69.2%), aged between 17 and 69 (M = 24.42, SD = 9.463). The results showed that the Spiritual Awareness Scale has acceptable psychometric characteristics as also good convergent and practical validity. The findings revealed that spirituality and religiosity affect the perception of the locus of control in opposite ways: the greater the spirituality, the greater the feeling of personal control over life events; and the greater the religiosity, the more the feeling of lack of control. These results raise important questions about the operationalization of both concepts of spirituality and religiosity.