Validation Study of the Revised Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS): A Cross-Sectional Survey in Poland

Abstract

Introduction

The use of a validated scale, Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS) to measure nurses’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care.

Aim

The purpose of this study was to analyse selected psychometric properties of the Polish version of the SSCRS, among them the applicability of the dimensions of spiritual care in nursing, ie, spirituality, spiritual care, religiosity and personalized care, to Polish conditions.

Methods

Poland-wide multicentre study with a cross-sectional validation design. The study was conducted between March and June 2019. Seven Polish Nursing Faculties accepted the invitation to participate in the study. A representative sample of 853 nurses enrolled in MSc (postgraduate) programs in nursing participated. After translation and cultural adaption of the SSCRS, the instrument underwent a full psychometric evaluation of its construct validity using (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis), internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha and correlation analysis), reliability (test−retest analysis), known-group validity (Student’s t-test) analysis.

Results

The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the Polish version of the SSCRS was a three-factor model with “Activity-centred spiritual care” (9 items), “Emotional support-centred spiritual care” (5 items) and “Religiosity” (3 items) domains. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the whole scale was 0.902, and the alpha values for the individual domains were 0.898, 0.873 and 0.563, respectively. The three domains mentioned above seemed to provide a comprehensive understanding of spiritual care perceived subjectively by Polish MSc in nursing students.

Conclusion

This study demonstrated a substantial degree of similarity in the selected psychometric characteristics of the Polish version of SSCRS and the original scale.

Keywords:

• spirituality
• holistic nursing
• nursing care
• postgraduate nursing education

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Kamila Kraszewska for her help in digitizing the survey data. We would like to thank all nurses who participated in the study.

Disclosure

Professor Mariusz Panczyk reports grants from Medical University of Warsaw, during the conduct of the study. The author reports no other conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

This project was financed under the program of the Minister of Science and Higher Education called Regional Initiative of Excellence in the years 2019–2023, project no 024/RID/2018/19, amount of financing PLN 11,999,000.00. The funders had no influence on the way the research was conducted, the content of the publication or the final conclusions.