Measuring Religiousness in Health Research: Review and Critique

Although existing measures of religiousness are sophisticated, no single approach has yet emerged as a standard. We review the measures of religiousness most commonly used in the religion and health literature with particular attention to their limitations, suggesting that vigilance is required to a...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Hall, Daniel E. (Author) ; Meador, Keith G. (Author) ; Koenig, Harold G. 1951- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V. [2008]
In: Journal of religion and health
Year: 2008, Volume: 47, Issue: 2, Pages: 134-163
Further subjects:B Measurement
B Spirituality
B Worldview
B Religiousness
B Philosophy
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Although existing measures of religiousness are sophisticated, no single approach has yet emerged as a standard. We review the measures of religiousness most commonly used in the religion and health literature with particular attention to their limitations, suggesting that vigilance is required to avoid over-generalization. After placing the development of these scales in historical context, we discuss measures of religious attendance, private religious practice, and intrinsic/extrinsic religious motivation. We also discuss measures of religious coping, wellbeing, belief, affiliation, maturity, history, and experience. We also address the current trend in favor of multi-dimensional and functional measures of religiousness. We conclude with a critique of the standard, "context-free" approach aimed at measuring "religiousness-in-general", suggesting that future work might more fruitfully focus on developing ways to measure religiousness in specific, theologically relevant contexts.
ISSN:1573-6571
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religion and health
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10943-008-9165-2