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

Introduction

This Special Issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture marks Part VI 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, 2018a, 2018b, 2019a, 2019b). Over the last four year, this series has become an annual, and sometimes a biannual fixture in the content of Mental Health, Religion & Culture, and is rapidly becoming a well-established resource for researchers and practitioners alike. This series aims to provide a dedicated 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.

Within this series, previous research has been presented in three 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. (Lewis, 2018a, p. 851)

This Special Issue continues with this style of presentation and comprises of eight empirical articles, each of which has been located within one of the three areas of development and evaluation.

First, two articles are presented that have focused on the development of new scales. Ayten and Korkmaz (2019) report among a sample of 678 Turkish Muslims, the development of the Turkish Prosociality Scale. Amanze and Carson (2019) report among a sample of 733 undergraduate students from Universities in Nigeria and the UK and a sample of 2017 members of the general public in Nigeria and the UK adults, the development of the Bolton Forgiveness Scale.

Second, four articles are presented that have focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of previously published scales that have been translated into another language. Kazemzadeh Atoofi et al. (2019) report among a sample of 250 Iranian psychiatric outpatients the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Farsi version (Dadfar, Lester, et al. (2019) of the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious Spiritual Well-Being (MI RSWB 48; Unterrainer et al., 2010). Senol-Durak and Durak (2019) report among a sample of 32 Turkish university students and a sample of 180 Turkish employees the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Flourishing Scale and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (Diener et al., 2010). Polemikou et al. (2019) report among a sample of 1777 Greek adults the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Greek version (KAPN) of the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory-24 (SISRI-24) (King, 2008; King & DeCicco, 2009). Dadfar, Salabifard, et al. (2019) report among a sample of 157 Iranian students the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Farsi version (Dadfar & Lester, 2017) of the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (Kroenke et al., 2003).

Third, two articles are presented that have focused on the reporting of supplementary psychometric data on developed scales in different cultural contexts and religious samples. Francis et al. (2019) report among a sample of 99 Anglican clergy in England, satisfactory psychometric properties of the Francis Burnout Inventory, comprising of the Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry (SEEM) and the Satisfaction in Ministry Scale (SIMS) (Francis et al., 2005). Crea (2019) report among a sample of 287 Catholic priests and religious sisters in Italy, satisfactory psychometric properties of the Italian version (Francis et al., 2017) of the Francis Burnout Inventory, comprising of the Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry (SEEM) and the Satisfaction in Ministry Scale (SIMS) (Francis et al., 2005).

This Special Issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture has illustrated the vast diversity and richness of the contemporary international research that is at present 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 four Special Issues, clearly attest to the on-going momentum of this specific research tradition.

This Special Issue would not have been possible without the assistance of many 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.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.