Spiritual Assessment in Clinical Setting: The Need for Future Research

Excerpt

Dr. Garssen et al. are correct in their assertion that there is a risk of confounding the constructs of spiritual well-being and psychological well-being. Such criticism was previously made for spirituality constructs,1 and could also have been mentioned in our paper. However, the purpose of our review was to systematically identify instruments that have been previously used in clinical research to measure spirituality and to classify them in categories that could be easily understandable for researchers and clinicians interested in choosing an instrument. Our purpose was not to critically review the spirituality constructs that formed the basis for these instruments, nor was it to endorse one measure over another. Nevertheless, we agree that future work should address this confound between spiritual well-being and mental health outcomes. This should be done not only from a “well-being” perspective but also from a “distress” perspective. In particular, distinction between spiritual distress and depression should be further discussed.2 …