Abstract
BackgroundSpiritual well-being has become an increasingly important issue for the elderly people. The 12-item Spirituality Index of Well-Being (SIWB) is a well-validated instrument for assessing a patient’s current spiritual state. However, the psychometric properties of the SIWB in the Chinese elderly populations are not known. Therefore, this study translated the SIWB into Chinese and evaluated its psychometric properties.MethodsThe English version of the SIWB was first translated into Chinese based on the Brislin’s translation model. The psychometric properties of the translated version of the SIWB (SIWB-C) was evaluated in 416 elderly Taiwanese recruited using a purposive sampling procedure from a medical center, a long-term care institution, and a community health center. Convergent validity was accessed using Pearson’s correlation coefficients of the SIWB-C, the EQ-5D-3 L health-related quality of life scale, and the Geriatric Depression Scale-5 (GDS-5). Exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was performed to determine the construct validity. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for verification of the quality of the factor structures and demonstrating the convergent validity of the SIWB-C. An internal consistency test based on the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and a stability test based on the Guttman split-half coefficient were also performed. Test-retest reliability was evaluated with intraclass correlation coefficient.ResultsExploratory factor analysis confirmed the original two-dimensional structure of the scale. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a well-fitting model and a fine convergent validity of the SIWB-C. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the Guttman split-half coefficient for the SIWB-C were 0.94 and 0.84, respectively. The correlations between the SIWB-C with EQ-5D-3 L and GDS-5 were 0.22 (p < 0.01) and 0.45 (p < 0.05), respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficient of the SIWB-C over a test-retest interval of two weeks was 0.989.ConclusionsThe SIWB-C was found to be a potential useful measure of subjective spiritual well-being in elderly Taiwanese. Its application in assessing the spiritual well-being in Mandarin-speaking elderly population warrants further investigation.
Highlights
Spiritual well-being has become an increasingly important issue for the elderly people
Gomez and Fisher [2] proposed that spiritual well-being “can be defined in terms of a state of being reflecting positive feelings, behaviors, and cognitions of relationship with oneself, others, the transcendent and nature, that in turn provide the individual with a sense of identity, wholeness, satisfaction, joy, contentment, beauty, love, respect, positive attitudes, inner peace and harmony, and purpose and direction in life” (p. 1976)
Based on the results of a factor analysis on 277 community-dwelling elderly individuals recruited from primary care clinic sites in the Kansas City metropolitan area, the initial 40-item version of the Spirituality Index of Well-Being (SIWB) was reduced to 12 items, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87 [9]
Summary
Spiritual well-being has become an increasingly important issue for the elderly people. The psychometric properties of the SIWB in the Chinese elderly populations are not known. This study translated the SIWB into Chinese and evaluated its psychometric properties. The spiritual well-being has become an increasingly important issue for the elderly people. Gomez and Fisher [2] proposed that spiritual well-being “can be defined in terms of a state of being reflecting positive feelings, behaviors, and cognitions of relationship with oneself, others, the transcendent and nature, that in turn provide the individual with a sense of identity, wholeness, satisfaction, joy, contentment, beauty, love, respect, positive attitudes, inner peace and harmony, and purpose and direction in life” Low spiritual well-being has been associated with a low quality of life [5] and depression [6] in elderly people
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