Abstract

PINTO, Cândida  and  PAIS-RIBEIRO, José Luís. Development of a scale for the assessment of spirituality in health settings . Arq Med [online]. 2007, vol.21, n.2, pp.47-53. ISSN 2183-2447.

Introduction: The spiritual dimension of human existence is an important issue since mankind exists. The relevance of spirituality within health care related to a growing holistic perspective of human care. The aim of this article is to describe the elaboration and validation process of a scale design to evaluate the spirituality. Method: The scale was administered to 426 cancer survivors. Outcomes: The psychometric properties of this scale present results of satisfactory validity and fidelity. Through an exploratory factorial analysis, two dimensions were found, i.e., beliefs and hope /optimism. Conclusions: Being a small scale (only 5 items), it is easy to fill in, and this will permit its validity consolidation in other future studies, aiming to identify the psychosocial variables associated to health and quality of life optimization of people with health problems.

Keywords : elaboration of a scale; spirituality; psychometric properties.

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