Empirical research on leisure and spiritual well-being: conceptualisation,measurement and findings

ABSTRACT

As a follow-up to recent chapters that concluded there is little existing evidence for a relationship between leisure and spiritual well-being, this paper reviews existing empirical research studies on leisure and spiritual well-being: their conceptualisation of spiritual well-being, methodology used, spiritual well-being measurement instruments, sample size, and the research findings. In the last 20 years, there has been an expansion of empirical research on leisure and spirituality; however, research has focused on immediate spiritual experience, not spiritual well-being. Nevertheless, 18 studies focus on leisure and spiritual well-being. All but three studies concluded that leisure was associated with spiritual well-being or contributed to spiritual well-being. Three studies also discovered that leisure could detract from spiritual well-being.