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

This Special Issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture marks Part VII 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, 2019c, 2019d). Over the last five years or so, this series has become an annual, and sometimes a biannual fixture in the content of Mental Health, Religion & Culture. The frequency of publication affirms the popularity of this series and the series has now become 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 nine empirical articles, each of which has been located within one of these first two areas of development and evaluation.

First, four articles are presented that have focused on the development of new scales. Camargo et al. (2020) report among a sample of 110 undergraduate psychology students enrolled at a public university located in the Southeast area of the United States, the development of the 12-Step Comparison Scale in the English language. Francis et al. (2020) report among a sample of 90 13- to 15-year-old self-assigned Sikh students attending year-nine and year-ten classes in a state-maintained school in England with a Sikh foundation, the development of the Athwal-Francis Scale in the English language. van Rensburg (2020) report among a sample of 445 South African local health science students, the development of the South African Spirituality Scale in the English language. Wongpakaran et al. (2020) report among a sample of 947 medical students in Thailand, the development of the (inner) Strength-Based Inventory in the Thai language.

Second, five articles are presented that have focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of previously published scales that have been translated into another language. Dadfar, Abdel-Khalek, et al. (2020) report among a sample of 111 Iranian psychiatric outpatients the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Farsi translation of the revised Arabic Scale of Obsession-Compulsion (Abdel-Khalek, 2018). Dadfar, Asgharnejadfarid, et al. (2020) report among a total of 349 Iranian participants (94 college students, 100 elderly persons, and 155 psychiatric outpatients) the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Farsi translation of the PHQ-15 (Kroenke et al., 2002). Francis and Crea (2020) report among a sample of 934 Italians aged 13–80 years old the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Italian translation of the Astley-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Theistic Faith (Astley et al., 2012). Haratian et al. (2020) report among a sample of 444 Iranian university students the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Farsi translation of the revised Islamic Scale for Greed and Frugality (Haratian et al., 2014). Suryadi (2020) report among a sample of 766 Indonesian Muslim college students aged 17–24 years old the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale (Olufadi, 2017).

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 six 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(s).