Spirituality, breast cancer beliefs and mammography utilization among urban African American women

Spirituality has been shown to be associated with health, and is an important component in the lives of many African Americans. Recent research proposes that spirituality is a multidimensional construct. The present study proposes a two-dimensional model in which spirituality encompasses a belief and behavioral dimension. This hypothesis was examined, as were relationships between these dimensions and spiritual health locus of control, breast cancer beliefs and mammography utilization among African American women. The belief dimension played a more important role in adaptive breast cancer beliefs and mammography utilization that did the behavioral dimension. These findings suggest the importance of spiritual belief systems for health, and implications for spiritual cancer communication interventions are discussed.