Religion, Spirituality and Health Research: Warning of Contaminated Scales

The relationship between religiosity, spirituality and health has received increasing attention in the academic literature. Studies involving quantitative measurement of religiosity and/or spirituality (R/S) and health have reported many positive associations between these constructs. The quality of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religion and health 2024-10, Vol.63 (5), p.3729-3743
Main Authors: Koenig, Harold G., Carey, Lindsay B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Clinical Psychology
Health Status
Humans
Impressionistic Reporting
Medical research
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mental Health
Public Health
Religion
Religion and Psychology
Religious Studies
Spirituality
Textbooks
Validity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The relationship between religiosity, spirituality and health has received increasing attention in the academic literature. Studies involving quantitative measurement of religiosity and/or spirituality (R/S) and health have reported many positive associations between these constructs. The quality of various measures, however, is very important in this field, given concerns that some measures of R/S have been contaminated with indicators of mental health. When this occurs, that is when R/S is defined and measured a priori, this subsequently guarantees a positive association between R/S and health (especially mental health). Such associations are called tautological, which involves correlating a construct with itself, thus producing associations that are uninterpretable and misleading. In this article, concerns about the measurement of R/S are discussed, examples of contaminated and potentially probelmatic measures of R/S are noted, and recommendations are made regarding uncontaminated measures of R/S that should be used in future studies of R/S and health.
ISSN:0022-4197
1573-6571
1573-6571
DOI:10.1007/s10943-024-02112-6