Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures (Part IV)

Introduction

This Special Issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture is part of a series entitled Assessment of Mental Health, Religion and Culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures … (Lewis, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d; 2017a, 2017b). The present Special Issue is Part IV. The aim of this series is to provide a forum for researchers to publish data on newly developed measures, or indeed established measures, that are of practical value for researchers interested in examining the relationship between the constructs of mental health, religion, and culture. As a collection, these Special Issues provide a growing resource for researchers working in the area, and beyond.

The previous three Special Issues (Lewis, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d, 2017a, 2017b) contained articles addressing three particular areas of development and evaluation. First, some of the articles were focused on reporting the psychometric properties of recently developed new scales. Second, some of the articles are focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of published scales translated into another language. Third, some of the articles are focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of scales employed in various cultural contexts and religious samples. This Special Issue continues with this style of presentation. In addition to this Editorial, this Special Issue comprises of 10 empirical articles, each of which has been located within one of the three areas of development and evaluation.

First, four articles are presented that have focused on the development of new scales. Alagheband et al. (2018) report among a sample of 383 Iranian Muslims the development of the Urban Quality of Life Scale with Islamic dimensions. Cranney, Leman, Fergus, and Rowatt (2018) report among a sample of 353 university students in the United States the development of the Hell Anxiety Scale. Ismail (2018) reports among samples of 249 and 220 Muslim Kurdish university students in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq the development of the Kurdish Religiosity Scale. Khodayarifard et al. (2018) report among 1170 university students of various religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), from 12 countries from Asia, Europe, Africa and America, the development of the Abrahamic Religiosity Scale.

Second, two articles are presented that have focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of previously published scales that have been translated into another language. Shim and Kim (2018) report among samples of 302 and 264 Korean Christian university students, the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Korean language translation of the Daily Spiritual Experience (Underwood & Teresi, 2002). Garey, Chesser, Hood, and Forbes (2018) report among a sample of 609 university students in the United States, the satisfactory psychometric properties of the English of the Religious Attribution Scale (Garey, Siregar, Hood, Agustiani, & Setiono, 2016).

Third, four articles are presented that have focused on the reporting of supplementary psychometric data on developed scales in different cultural contexts and religious samples. Burnham, Le, and Piedmont (2018) report among a sample of 1707 MTurk (Amazon Mechanical Turk) online workers, United States residents, and English speaking, the satisfactory psychometric properties of the International Personality Item Pool 50 (Goldberg,1992), Assessment of Spirituality and Religious Sentiments (Piedmont, 2010, 2014), Affect Balance Scale (Bradburn, 1969), Purpose in Life Test (Crumbaugh, 1968). However, Burnham et al. (2018) note caution with respect to the “significant mean level differences were observed for 14 of the 15 study scales, however, effect sizes were small (eta2 ranged from .01 to .04)” (p. 934) and also that the sample comprised of a comparatively higher “number of Agnostics and Atheists could be of concern to researchers studying religious and spiritual constructs who choose to use MTurk for their data collection” (p. 941). Francis, Payne, and Emslie (2018) report among a sample of 364 Anglican clergy, serving in the Church in Wales, the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998). Limb, Hodge, Ward, Alboroto, and Larkin (2018) report among a sample of 100 practitioners in the United States with extensive practice experience and knowledge regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) culture the successful examination of a complementary set of five spiritual assessment tools (Spiritual genogram, Spiritual life map, Spiritual history, Spiritual ecogram, and Spiritual eco-map) for LDS clients. Onyigbuo, Alexis Garsee, and van den Akker (2018) report among a sample of 297 British Nigerians, the satisfactory psychometric properties of the adaptation of the Measurement of Acculturation Strategies for People of African Decent (Obasi & Leong, 2010).

This Special Issue has illustrated the wide diversity and richness of the contemporary international research that is currently being undertaken on scale development and evaluation pertinent to the field of mental health, religion, and culture, and beyond. This collection, along with the previous three Special Issues, clearly attest to the ongoing momentum of this specific research tradition. Further Special Issues are planned. It has been proposed that future Special Issues may wish to provide a forum for research that has focused on particular measures or constructs, as well as research that has been undertaken in one specific cultural context. Both of these initiatives are to be welcomed.

This Special Issue would not have been possible without the assistance of a number of people. We wish to acknowledge the authors who provided stimulating articles and efficient revisions, and our reviewers for their judicious and insightful evaluations of the manuscripts submitted. We are particularly grateful to the regular Co-Editors of Mental Health, Religion & Culture for their continued enthusiasm for this on-going initiative.