EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE SPIRITUAL WELLNESS INVENTORY CHIVONNA Y. CHILDS Bachelor of Arts in Sociology Bowling Green State University August, 1993 Master of Rehabilitation Counseling Bowling Green State University December, 1995 Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN URBAN EDUCATION: COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY at the CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY August, 2014 ©Copyright by Chivonna Y. Childs 2014 We hereby approve the dissertation of Chivonna Y. Childs Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Counseling Psychology Degree This Dissertation has been approved for the Office of Doctoral Studies, College of Education and Human Services and CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY College of Graduate Studies by: ______________________________________________________ Dissertation Chairperson: Elliott Ingersoll, Ph.D. Counseling, Administration, Supervision, and Adult Learning ________________________________________________________ Methodologist: Jonathan E. Messemer, Ed.D. Counseling, Administration, Supervision, and Adult Learning _________________________________________________________ Sarah M. Toman, Ph.D. Counseling, Administration, Supervision, and Adult Learning ___________________________________________________________ Patricia Stoddard Dare, Ph.D. School of Social Work August 7, 2014 Student’s Date of Defense ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost I want to thank God who is the author and finisher of my life. Everything I am and every gift I have to give is only possible through God who loves and strengthens me. Secondly I would like to thank my parents Sandra Scott (Hewlett Hall) and Sidney Pearl who supported me and always encouraged me to pursue my dreams. I also dedicate this to my husband Phillip A. Childs who not only encouraged me to dream, but dreamt with me and sometimes had bigger aspirations than my own. Without you my love, this would not have been possible. You have been my everything, my friend, lover and soul mate. I also dedicate this to my children Phillip, Jr. and Phylicia who kept me on my toes and encouraged me through their love and support to finish this journey. I love you all so much and so much of who I have become is because of all of you. I would also like to thank my family at Broadview Multicare Center who supported me as I began this journey and never once made me feel as if I did not deserve this. I have never been so supported by a workplace and I thank all of you at Broadview for the investment that you put in me. Lastly I would like to thank Dr. Ingersoll for allowing me to use his spiritual assessment as the basis of my dissertation, for without it my dissertation would not be possible. I would also like to thank my committee: Dr. Messemer, Dr. Toman and Dr. Stoddard Dare for encouraging and supporting me through this process. Your consideration is greatly appreciated. EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE SPIRITUAL WELLNESS INVENTORY CHIVONNA Y. CHILDS ABSTRACT The relationship between psychology and spirituality has been tenuous. Psychology distanced itself from spirituality, which could not be empirically tested, in order to establish itself as a viable science. As psychology sought this endeavor, a renewed interest in spirituality and therapy arose resulting in numerous studies exploring the effects of religion and spirituality concluding that religion and/or spirituality may provide a protective psychological factor which enhances coping skills (Johnstone et al., 2008). There has been a renewed interest regarding spirituality and therapists have realized the importance of identifying a client’s spiritual outlook or lack thereof in care planning and treatment of clients (Stanard et al., 2000). In order to appropriately address spirituality, assessments are helpful for information gathering about clients. To date there are a number of assessments claiming to assess spirituality that show acceptable validity and reliability (Slater et al., 2001; Young et al., 2009). However, a majority of these assessments focus on one of the largest religious groups in the United States, Christians (Hill & Pargament, 2003); thereby eliminating individuals with non-Christian spiritual or religious identities. Spiritual assessments should take into account cultural diversity to assess spiritual wellness; as the world becomes more diverse professionals are called to be cognizant of its importance. The Spiritual Wellness Inventory (Ingersoll, 1995) was proposed to take into account cultural diversity with the goal of assessing spirituality across all cultural v domains. The SWI also purposes to address many limitations of previous assessments; however, its reliability and validity have not been studied. This quantitative study tested the reliability and validity of the SWI. This study surveyed roughly 500 respondents using Survey Monkey via email with three spiritual assessments - The Spiritual Wellbeing Scale (Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982), The Spiritual Assessment Inventory (Hall & Edwards, 1996) and The Spiritual Wellness Inventory (Ingersoll, 1995). Data was collected and analyzed to determine if the SWI is a reliable and valid indicator of spiritual wellbeing across cultures. The findings suggest that the original 10 factor groupings of the SWI do not provide a valid or reliable assessment of spirituality amongst diverse religious and spiritual cultures. Therefore a shift was made to restructure the SWI and findings suggest that the newly restructured SWI is a reliable measure of spirituality amongst diverse religious and/or spiritual cultures. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER: I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 Spirituality and Coping .................................................................................. 4 Spirituality and the Medical Field.................................................................. 5 Spirituality and Mental Health ....................................................................... 6 Spirituality and Meaning................................................................................ 7 Role of Therapist............................................................................................ 7 Spiritual Struggles .......................................................................................... 8 Justification of the Study ............................................................................... 9 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................. 10 Purpose of the Study .................................................................................... 12 Research Questions ...................................................................................... 12 II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...................................................................... 13 Defining Spirituality, Religion and Spiritual Wellness ............................... 13 The importance of Assessing Spirituality .................................................... 18 Therapeutic Integration ................................................................................ 20 Competence and Ethics ................................................................................ 21 Review of SAI and SWBS Spiritual Assessments ....................................... 25 Review of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory ................................................ 28 III. METHODOLGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................... 33 vii Methodology ................................................................................................ 34 Instrumentation ..................................................................................... 34 Sample................................................................................................... 35 Data Collection ............................................................................................ 40 Administration ...................................................................................... 40 Data storage .......................................................................................... 41 Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 41 IV. RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 45 The Item Mean Scores for the Spiritual Wellness Inventory ....................... 46 The Item Mean Scores for the Spiritual Wellbeing Scale ............................ 55 Re-employment of Factory Analysis for the Spiritual Wellness Inventory . 57 V. DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... 62 Significant Findings ..................................................................................... 63 Research question #1 ............................................................................ 63 Research question #2 ............................................................................ 63 Research question #3 ............................................................................ 64 Implications for Therapy .............................................................................