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How Belgian Defence Personnel Define "Spirituality": Empirical Pathways Toward Spiritual Fitness
Tatiana Letovaltseva1,2,3, Julien Decharneux1,3, Karen Kennes1
1Behavioral Sciences Department, Royal Military Academy, Brussels 1000, Belgium.
Military Medicine
|August 6, 2026
Summary
Belgian Defence personnel hold diverse views on spirituality, often emphasizing connection and meaning. This understanding is key to developing a culturally relevant spiritual fitness framework for military well-being.
Area of Science:
- Military Psychology
- Sociology of Religion
- Organizational Behavior
Background:
- Spirituality's growing recognition in military well-being, moral resilience, and performance.
- Limited understanding of how service members conceptualize spirituality.
- Need for a culturally grounded spiritual fitness framework for military personnel.
Purpose of the Study:
- Empirically map Belgian Defence personnel's conceptualization of spirituality.
- Inform the development of a culturally relevant spiritual fitness framework.
- Explore the relationship between self-perceived spirituality and its definition.
Main Methods:
- Defence-wide survey (N=473) including closed-ended and open-ended questions.
- Descriptive analysis of quantitative data on self-perceived spirituality.
- Inductive thematic coding of 274 qualitative definitions by a 3-researcher team.
- Mixed-methods integration via cross-tabulation of self-positioning and thematic categories.
Main Results:
- Bimodal self-identification: 51.37% not spiritual, 40.59% spiritual.
- 57.9% provided definitions, revealing 4 themes: functional, ontological, phenomenological, relational.
- Spirituality described as polymorphous, dynamic, and evolving across profiles.
- Shared conceptual elements (connection, meaning, practices) despite varying self-identification and reluctance to define.
Conclusions:
- Foundational evidence for a culturally coherent spiritual fitness framework in Belgian Defence.
- Highlights the need for further research into personnel's vision of spiritual fitness assessment.
- Suggests exploring the integration of spiritual fitness with existing military fitness pillars.
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