Instruments Measuring Spirituality in Clinical Research

Excerpt

To the Editors—Spirituality and its relationship with well-being and quality of life in patients with somatic diseases is a rapidly developing field of research.1 For the further progress of scientific and clinical knowledge a reliable and valid spirituality questionnaire is indispensable. In their elaborate review Monod et al. have critically discussed available questionnaires, focusing mainly on their psychometric qualities, to assist researchers and clinicians in choosing the most appropriate instrument.2 In our view, they did not lay enough emphasis on two criteria: the misleading inclusion of well-being items and the overrepresentation of religious items in spirituality scales. …