An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods

This study arose out of a search for a suitable scale to measure religion and spirituality. The literature suggests that religion and spirituality are potentially powerful explanatory variables in health and social research, but there do not appear to be any instruments that are generally accepted a...

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Main Author: Browne, Geoffrey Robert
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Curtin University 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2545
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author Browne, Geoffrey Robert
author_facet Browne, Geoffrey Robert
author_sort Browne, Geoffrey Robert
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This study arose out of a search for a suitable scale to measure religion and spirituality. The literature suggests that religion and spirituality are potentially powerful explanatory variables in health and social research, but there do not appear to be any instruments that are generally accepted as measures of an individual's religious or spiritual characteristics. While a lack of consensus in such a complex area is probably to be expected, it is the lack of accepted measures or instruments that drives this study. The literature review describes the historical influence of religion on public health practices, and the most recently reported associations between religion and both physical and mental health. This establishes religion as a potentially useful construct to include in any health study. However, the reported association between religion and health is often unclear, and the measures used differ widely between studies. This study goes beyond the health context and explores the reasons why existing methods have not resulted in broadly accepted measures of religion and spirituality.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-25452017-02-20T06:38:21Z An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods Browne, Geoffrey Robert influence of religion on health measures of religion and spirituality This study arose out of a search for a suitable scale to measure religion and spirituality. The literature suggests that religion and spirituality are potentially powerful explanatory variables in health and social research, but there do not appear to be any instruments that are generally accepted as measures of an individual's religious or spiritual characteristics. While a lack of consensus in such a complex area is probably to be expected, it is the lack of accepted measures or instruments that drives this study. The literature review describes the historical influence of religion on public health practices, and the most recently reported associations between religion and both physical and mental health. This establishes religion as a potentially useful construct to include in any health study. However, the reported association between religion and health is often unclear, and the measures used differ widely between studies. This study goes beyond the health context and explores the reasons why existing methods have not resulted in broadly accepted measures of religion and spirituality. 2006 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2545 en Curtin University fulltext
spellingShingle influence of religion on health
measures of religion and spirituality
Browne, Geoffrey Robert
An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
title An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
title_full An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
title_fullStr An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
title_full_unstemmed An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
title_short An exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
title_sort exploratory study of the measurement of religion and spirituality using scale content analysis and epidemiological methods
topic influence of religion on health
measures of religion and spirituality
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2545