How Spiritual Are Social Workers? An Exploration of Social Work Practitioners' Personal Spiritual Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices

Background & Purpose: Issues related to personal religion/spirituality are receiving increasing interest in the social work realm, especially regarding the importance of religion/spirituality to clients and in client needs assessments (Stewart, Koeske & Koeske, 2006). Exclusion of spirituality from social work practice potentially excludes a large part of clients' bio/psycho/social make-up. Yet little is known about the role religion/spirituality play in social work practitioners' lives or how practitioners are incorporating their own or their clients' religiosity/spirituality in practice (Kvarfordt & Sheridan, 2007; Sheridan, 2000). This study extends the current knowledge base by examining predictors of practitioners' use of spiritual interventions in their social work practice.

Method: This study used an anonymous cross-sectional, simple random sample design (N=225) to examine: practitioners' personal spirituality, attitudes concerning the role of religion and spirituality in practice, and spiritual practice intervention utilization. The study included researcher developed demographic questions (e.g. age, gender, and ethnicity). The study included the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), considered to be the “gold standard” measure of spirituality (Genia, 2001; Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982). In addition, this study utilized the Intrinsic Spirituality Scale (ISS) (Kvarfordt & Sheridan, 2007; Sheridan, 2000) and Sheridan's (2000) Role of Religion and Spirituality in Practice scale. To predict social work intervention utilization (as measured by the Spiritually Derived Intervention Checklist (SDIC)) .The data was analyzed using a simultaneous entry multiple regression.

Results: Participants were predominantly White (88%), female (83%), and had a mean age of almost 50. Over 82% of the sample stated they believed in God (or some other “higher power) with over 58% identifying themselves as Christian. Interestingly, although 59% of the respondents considered themselves religious people, 94% considered themselves to be spiritual. The findings suggest religion and spirituality might play a large role in respondents' personal lives. The regression model was significant (F=9.70, p< .0005). The set of variables accounted for 28.2% (adjusted R2 = 25.2%) of the variance in scores on the SDIC, indicating that respondents had a positive attitude toward including religion and spirituality in their practice and were using various religious/spiritual client driven interventions in practice.

Conclusion & Implications: Findings illustrate the importance of religion and spirituality in the personal and professional lives of many practitioners. Overall scores on the SWBS, the RRSP and the ISS all indicate that most respondents have a relationship with “God” and nearly all felt that their personal spiritual beliefs are very important to their well-being. Likewise, many respondents have a positive attitude toward including issues of religion and spirituality in their practice and some are actively incorporating client-centered, religious/spiritually-derived activities in their practice. That the incorporation of these activities often occurs in the absence of relevant social work training regarding spirituality/religion has substantial implications for education of future social workers. Likewise, these findings illustrate the importance of further theoretically-driven empirical study to deepen our understanding of the content and effectiveness of spirituality-derived practices being used in the field.