Advanced search
Publication Cover
Mental Health, Religion & Culture Volume 22, 2019 - Issue 6: Special Issue: Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures (Part V). Guest Editor: Christopher Alan Lewis
Submit an article Journal homepage
1,086
Views
9
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Editorial

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

Christopher Alan LewisWarwick Religions & Education Research Unit, Centre for Education Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Warwick University, Coventry, UKCorrespondence[email protected]
ORCID Iconhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2314-2899
ORCID Icon
Pages 559-562 | Published online: 24 Sep 2019

Introduction

This Special Issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture marks Part V of a series entitled Assessment of Mental Health, Religion and Culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures … (Lewis, Citation2016a, Citation2016b, Citation2016c, Citation2016d, Citation2017a, Citation2017b, Citation2018a, Citation2018b). The aim of this series is 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. As a general collection, these Special Issues provide a growing resource for researchers working in the area, and beyond. In doing so, this resource will help to supplement and extend previous collections (Büssing, Citation2019; Hill & Hood,Citation1999; Koenig, Al Zaben, Khalifa, & Al Shohaib, Citation2015; Robinson & Shaver, Citation1973) and reviews that have been routinely undertaken (e.g., Cutting & Walsh, Citation2008; Egbert, Mickley, & Coeling, Citation2004; Hill, Citation2013; Hill & Edwards, Citation2013; Hodge, Citation2013; Kapuscinski & Masters, Citation2010; Monod et al., Citation2011; Sessanna, Finnell, Underhill, Chang, & Peng, Citation2011; Zwingmann, Klein, & Büssing, Citation2011).

The previous four Special Issues (Lewis, Citation2016a, Citation2016b, Citation2016c, Citation2016d, Citation2017a, Citation2017b, Citation2018a, Citation2018b) 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. (Lewis, Citation2018a, p. 851)

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

First, two articles are presented that have focused on the development of new scales. Azadi et al. (Citation2019) report among a sample of 291 Iranian college students, the development of the Avicenna Far of Death Scale. Hall and Hall (Citation2019) report among a sample of 602 adults recruited online, the development of the Hall Index of Mystical Spirituality.

Second, six articles are presented that have focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of previously published scales that have been translated into another language. Cabras, Loi, and Sechi (Citation2019) report among a sample of 663 adolescent Italian adolescent students of the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Forgiveness Scale (Rye et al., Citation2001). Dadfar, Lester, Turan, Beshai, and Unterrainer (Citation2019) report among a sample of 422 Iranian people the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious Spiritual Well-Being (Unterrainer, Huber, Ladenhauf, Wallner-Liebmann, & Liebmann, Citation2010). Francis, Crea, and McKenna (Citation2019) report among a sample of 155 Italian Catholic Catholic priests the Italian version of the Purpose-in-Life Scale (Robbins & Francis, Citation2000). Janu, Malinakova, Kosarkova, Furstova, and Tavel (Citation2019) report among a sample of 531 religious Czech adults (over 15 years old) the psychometric properties of the Czech version of the Negative Religious Coping (NRC) Scale of the Brief RCOPE (Pargament, Feuille, & Burdzy, Citation2011). Magnano, Zammitti, Dibilio, and Faraci (Citation2019) report among a sample of 531 Italian adults the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Jarel Spiritual Well-Being Scale (Hungelmann, Kenkel-Rossi, Klassen, & Stollenwerk, Citation1996). Yildiz, Bulut, and Miner (Citation2019) report among three samples of Turkish Muslim college students (N = 525, N = 341, and N = 47) the adaptation for Turkish Muslims of a Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (God Attachment) (Miner, Ghobary-Bonab, & Dowson, Citation2017).

This Special Issue has illustrated the wide diversity and richness of the contemporary international research that is 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 ongoing momentum of this specific research tradition. In light of the ongoing success of the Special Issues, subsequent ones have been commissioned. 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. Each of these two initiatives is 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.

ORCID

Christopher Alan Lewis http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2314-2899

References

  • Azadi, M., Haratiyan, A. A., Fathi-Ashtiani, A., Janbozorgi, M., Shabestari, Z. P., & Zadeh, A. A. (2019a). The development and validation of a Fear of Death Scale based on the cognitive approach of Avicenna. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 563–574. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2019.1637833
  • Boyle, G. J., Saklofske, D. H., & Matthews, G. (Eds.). (2015). Measures of personality and social psychological constructs. London: Academic Press.
  • Büssing, A. (Ed). (2019). Measures of spirituality/religiosity (2018). Basel: MDPI. Religions. doi: 10.3390/books978-3-03897-933-3
  • Cabras, C., Loi, G., & Sechi, C. (2019a). Testing the factor structure of the Forgiveness Scale among Italian adolescent students. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 580–590. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2018.1524861
  • Cutting, M., & Walsh, M. (2008). Religiosity scales: What are we measuring in whom? Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 30(1), 137–154. doi: 10.1163/157361208X317006
  • Dadfar, M., Lester, D., Turan, Y., Beshai, J. A., & Unterrainer, H.-F. (2019a). Validation of the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious Spiritual Well-Being with Iranian samples. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 591–601. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2019.1628194
  • Egbert, N., Mickley, J., & Coeling, H. (2004). A review and application of social scientific measures of religiosity and spirituality: Assessing a missing component in health communication research. Health Communication, 16(1), 7–27. doi: 10.1207/S15327027HC1601_2
  • Francis, L. J., Crea, G., & McKenna, U. (2019a). The Purpose-in-Life Scale (PILS): Internal consistency reliability, concurrent validity and construct validity among Catholic priests in Italy. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 602–613. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2018.1538205
  • Hall, G. L., & Hall, D. S. (2019). The Hall Index of Mystical Spirituality: An exploration in constructing a short scale of mystical spirituality. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 575–579. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2019.1589440
  • Hill, P. C. (2013). Measurement assessment and issues in the psychology of religion and spirituality. In R. F. Paloutzian, & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (2nd ed. pp. 43–61). New York, NY: Guilford.
  • Hill, P. C., & Edwards, E. (2013). Measurement in the psychology of religiousness and spirituality: Existing measures and new frontiers. In K. I. Pargament (Ed.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality: Vol. 1. Context, theory, and research (pp. 51–77). doi: 10.1037/14045-003
  • Hill, P. C., & Hood, R. W. (Eds.). (1999). Measures of religiosity. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
  • Hodge, D. R. (2013). Assessing spirituality and religion in the context of counseling and psychotherapy. In K. I. Pargament (Ed.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality: An applied psychology of religion and spirituality (Vol. 2, pp. 93–123). doi: 10.1037/14046-005
  • Hungelmann, J., Kenkel-Rossi, E., Klassen, L., & Stollenwerk, R. (1996). Focus on spiritual well-being: Harmonious interconnectedness of mind-body-spirit-use of the JAREL Spiritual Well-being Scale: Assessment of spiritual well-being is essential to the health of individuals. Geriatric Nursing, 17(6), 262–266. doi: 10.1016/S0197-4572(96)80238-2
  • Janu, A., Malinakova, K., Kosarkova, A., Furstova, J., & Tavel, P. (2019). Psychometric evaluation of the Negative Religious Coping (NRC) Scale of the Brief RCOPE in the Czech environment. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 614–625. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2019.1597033
  • Kapuscinski, A. N., & Masters, K. S. (2010). The current status of measures of spirituality: A critical review of scale development. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2(4), 191–205. doi: 10.1037/a0020498
  • Koenig, H. G., Al Zaben, F., Khalifa, D. A., & Al Shohaib, S. (2015). Measures of religiosity. In G. J. Boyle, D. H. Saklofske, & G. Matthews (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological constructs (pp. 530–561). London: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00019-X
  • Lewis, C. A. (2016a). Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures (Part I). Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19(5), 415–419. doi:10.1080/13674676.2016. 1233662 doi: 10.1080/13674676.2016.1233662
  • Lewis, C. A. (2016b). Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures (Part II). Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19(8), 803–806. doi:10.1080/13674676.2017.1310477
  • Lewis, C. A. (Ed.). (2016c). Mental health, religion and culture: Development and evaluation of psychometric measures (Part I) [Special Issue]. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19(5).
  • Lewis, C. A. (Ed.). (2016d). Mental health, religion and culture: Development and evaluation of psychometric measures (Part II) [Special Issue]. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19(8).
  • Lewis, C. A. (2017a). Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures (Part III). Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20(9), 857–859. doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2017.1438866
  • Lewis, C. A. (Ed). (2017b). Mental health, religion and culture: Development and evaluation of psychometric measures (Part III) [Special Issue]. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20(9). doi: 10.1080/13674676.2017.1438866
  • Lewis, C. A. (2018a). Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures (Part IV). Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 21(9-10), 851–854. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2018.1616383
  • Lewis, C. A. (Ed.). 2018b). Mental health, religion and culture: Development and evaluation of psychometric measures (Part IV) [Special Issue]. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 21(9-10). doi: 10.1080/13674676.2018.1616383
  • Magnano, P., Zammitti, A., Dibilio, R., & Faraci, P. (2019a). Italian validation of the Jarel Spiritual Well-Being Scale. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 626–644. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2019.1594740
  • Miner, M., Ghobary-Bonab, B., & Dowson, M. (2017). Development of a measure of attachment to God for Muslims. Review of Religious Research, 59, 183–206. doi: 10.1007/s13644-016-0281-2
  • Monod, S., Brennan, M., Rochat, E., Martin, E., Rochat, S., & Büla, C. J. (2011). Instruments measuring spirituality in clinical research: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26(11), 1345–1357. doi: 10.1007/s11606-011-1769-7
  • Pargament, K. I., Feuille, M., & Burdzy, D. (2011). The Brief RCOPE: Current psychometric status of a short measure of religious coping. Religions, 2(1), 51–76. doi: 10.3390/rel2010051
  • Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. M. (2000). The many methods of religious coping: Development and initial validation of the RCOPE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56(4), 519–543. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(200004)56:4<519::AID-JCLP6>3.0.CO;2-1 doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(200004)56:4<519::AID-JCLP6>3.0.CO;2-1
  • Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.). (1973). Measures of social psychological attitudes (Revised). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
  • Robbins, M., & Francis, L. J. (2000). Religion, personality and wellbeing: The relationship between church attendance and purpose in life among undergraduates attending an Anglican college in Wales. Journal of Research on Christian Education, 9(2), 223–238. doi: 10.1080/10656210009484908
  • Rye, M. S., Loiacono, D. M., Folck, C. D., Olszewski, B. T., Heim, T. A., & Madia, B. P. (2001). Evaluation of the psychometric properties of two forgiveness scales. Current Psychology, 20(3), 260–277. doi: 10.1007/s12144-001-1011-6
  • Sessanna, L., Finnell, D. S., Underhill, M., Chang, Y. P., & Peng, H. L. (2011). Measures assessing spirituality as more than religiosity: A methodological review of nursing and health-related literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 67(8), 1677–1694. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05596.x
  • Unterrainer, H. F., Huber, H. P., Ladenhauf, K. H., Wallner-Liebmann, S. J., & Liebmann, P. M. (2010). MI-RSB 48: Die Entwicklung eines multidimensionalen Inventars zum religiös-spirituellen Befinden [MI-RSWB 48: The development of a Multidimensional Inventory for religious/spiritual Well-Being]. Diagnostica, 56(2), 82–93. doi: 10.1026/0012-1924/a000001
  • Yildiz, M., Bulut, M. B., & Miner, M. (2019). Adaptation of a Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (God Attachment) for Turkish Muslims: A validity and reliability study. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(6), 645–659. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2019.1587745
  • Zwingmann, C., Klein, C., & Büssing, A. (2011). Measuring religiosity/spirituality: Theoretical differentiations and categorization of instruments. Religions, 2(3), 345–357. doi: 10.3390/rel2030345

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Order Reprints Request Corporate Permissions

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

Request Academic Permissions

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.

Download PDF

Related research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.