Religion and spirituality defined according to current use in nursing literature

The nursing literature published from 1963 to 1989 was screened for definitions to distinguish the concept of religion from that of spirituality. Following concept analysis procedures, definitions were selected from journal articles and textbooks and the key words in the definitions were listed in order of frequency. In definitions of religion, six words appeared most frequently--system, beliefs, organized, person, worship, practices; in definitions of spirituality, nine words appeared most frequently--personal, life, principle, animator, being, God (god), quality, relationship, transcendent. Only the word person(al) appeared on both lists. Using these two lists, the words (defining attributes) that appeared most frequently were formed as consensus definitions. It was concluded that spirituality is currently the broader term and may subsume aspects of religion. If these concepts are not clearly defined, the care related to personal life principles, relationships, and transcendent experiences may be confused with care for personal beliefs and worship practices.