Sunday, December 19, 2010

Spiritual healing can now be measured - A new scale has been developed

It's interesting that they are defining "spiritual healing" along five subscales: outlook, energy, health, relationships, and emotional balance. I'd love to the inventory and the kinds of questions they are looking.

There is an older measure that assesses posttraumatic growth (although it has also been adapted to non-traumatic situations). I wonder what kinds of similarities - and differences - there are?

Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Journal of

Spiritual healing can now be measured: a new scale has been developed

06 December 2010

Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

This study describes a psychometrically sound healing impact questionnaire that is acceptable to healees, healers, and researchers for use in future evaluations of spiritual healing.

A group of researchers of the University of Southampton has developed a new method for measuring spiritual healing and is presented in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

Spiritual healing, probably the oldest documented paramedical intervention, is a neglected area of research. In order to conduct further research into the effects of healing, a valid and reliable outcome measure is needed that captures the experience of individuals receiving healing (healees) and is not burdensome to complete. A group of English researchers aimed to develop such a measure using a mixed methods design. Focus groups and cognitive interviews were used to generate and refine questionnaire items grounded in the experiences and language of healees (Study 1). The resulting questionnaire was tested and its formal psychometric properties were evaluated (Study 2). Participants were recruited from a spiritual healing sanctuary and via individual healers (including registered spiritual healers, Reiki practitioners, healers affiliated with churches).

In Study 1, 24 participants took part in 7 focus groups and 6 cognitive interviews. 29 common effects were identified and grouped into 7 discrete dimensions that appeared to characterize potentially sustainable effects reported by participants following their experiences of spiritual healing. In Study 2, 393 participants returned completed baseline questionnaires, 243 of whom completed the questionnaire again 1–6 weeks later. Exploratory factor analysis generated 5 subscales, based on 20 of the items: outlook, energy, health, relationships and emotional balance. These subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, convergent validity and test-retest reliability. Three of the subscales and the whole questionnaire demonstrated good sensitivity to change. The investigators have produced a psychometrically sound healing impact questionnaire that is acceptable to healees, healers and researchers for use in future evaluations of spiritual healing.

Full bibliographic information:
Bishop, F.L., Barlow, F., Walker, J., McDermott, C. & Lewith, G.T. (2010). The Development and Validation of an Outcome Measure for Spiritual Healing: A Mixed Methods Study. Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics;79:350-362

2 comments:

Cheryl Petersen said...

Spiritual healing can be measured as well as the cosmos is measured, on and on and on.

Hawaiian honeymoons said...

Still can't understand the points and the terms perfectly.. :(