Measuring Multiple Dimensions of Religion and Spirituality for Health Research

Abstract

Progress in studying the relationship between religion and health has been hampered by the absence of an adequate measure of religiousness and spirituality. This article reports on the conceptual and empirical development of an instrument to measure religiousness and spirituality, intended explicitly for studies of health. It is multidimensional to allow investigation of multiple possible mechanisms of effect, brief enough to be included in clinical or epidemiological surveys, inclusive of both traditional religiousness and noninstitutionally based spirituality, and appropriate for diverse Judeo-Christian populations. The measure may be particularly useful for studies of health in elderly populations in which religious involvement is higher. The measure was tested in the nationally representative 1998 General Social Survey ( N = 1,445). Nine dimensions have indices with moderate-to-good internal consistency, and there are three single-item domains. Analysis by age and sex shows that elderly respondents report higher levels of religiousness in virtually every domain of the measure.

Varieties of Voice-Hearing: Psychics and the Psychosis Continuum

“…29 30 : to assess endorsement, conviction, preoccupation, and distress for a range of unusual beliefs. 7.Brief Multidimensional Measurement of Religiosity and Spirituality (BMMRS) 31 to quantify religious/spiritual engagement, given psychics' identification as members of a spiritual community.…”

“…In order to determine how the clairaudient psychic group compared to the other 3 groups in terms of overall symptomatology and religious conviction, we compared: the LSHS-R 10,26 ; PANSS 23 ; Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) 37 ; Peters Delusion Inventory (PDI) 30 ; Chapman Anhedonia, Perceptual Aberration, and Magical Ideation subscales 38 ; and the Brief Multidimensional Measurement of Religiosity and Spirituality (BMMRS) 31 scores across all 4 groups (supplementary table 1).…”

Improving Well-Being in Caregivers of Terminally Ill Patients. Making the Case for Patient Suffering as a Focus for Intervention Research

“…depression and anxiety), these include measures of loneliness, frustration, and embarrassment (27). Finally, researchers have recently developed measures of spiritual well-being and despair (28,29). These instruments, however, have rarely been administered in caregiver intervention studies.…”

“Dao Bog zdravlja”: o povezanosti religioznosti i zdravlja u Hrvatskoj

“…Prema podacima našeg istraživanja 33,3% ispitanika puši 19 , dok 57,0% pije alkohol. U zadnjih 12 mjeseci zbog zdravstvenih problema liječnika je posjetilo 61,3% ispitanika, a zbog kontrole ili preventive 60,7% ispitanika.…”

“…S obzirom na religijsku praksu, pokazuje se da ispitanici koji češće odlaze u crkvu manje puše. Štoviše, odlazak u crkvu, kao jedna od nezavisnih varijabli koja je pove- 19 To odgovara podacima Svjetske zdravstvene organizacije iz 2000. godine kada je u Hrvatskoj zabilježeno 30,3% pušača, od toga 34,1% muškaraca, a 26,6% žena (http://www.euro.who.int/Document/E80607.pdf). Istraživanje WHO-a iz 2003. godine pokazuje da dobna struktura utječe na konzumaciju cigareta.…”