The structure of religion and spirituality in a diverse sample of adults in the United States: A report on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in the study on stress, spirituality, and health.

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Abstract
This paper details psychometric analyses of religion and spirituality (R/S) measures in a diverse sample of U.S. adults in the Study on Stress, Spirituality, and Health (SSSH). Participants (n = 16,372) completed the SSSH Baseline Survey which assessed a broad range of R/S practices, beliefs, and experiences. The survey was administered in six NIH-funded cohort studies. Four cohorts were homogeneous regarding participant race/ethnicity: Black, South Asian, American Indian, or Hispanic/Latino. Two cohorts included predominantly White participants. Given our goal of identifying a robust, parsimonious set of R/S measures for common use in U.S. cohort studies, we analyzed the structure of individual R/S items in a combined sample and disregarded whether items were part of a pre-existing scale. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of 60 R/S items in a randomly selected half of the sample (n1=8,186) revealed nine R/S dimensions; four were robust to retention criteria. The four remaining R/S dimensions were Positive Religion/Spiritualty and Coping, Negative Religious Coping/Spiritual Struggle, Spirituality as Meaning-Purpose-Connection, and Non-Theistic Daily Spiritual Experiences. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of 41 retained items conducted in the second half of the sample (n2=8,186) demonstrated that a correlated 4-factor model fit better than a unidimensional model or orthogonal (uncorrelated) 4-factor model. Future work is needed to confirm this model in other datasets, to demonstrate the external validity of these core R/S constructs in relation to a range of outcomes, and to finalize a robust but efficient set of R/S measures for use in U.S. cohort studies.
Funding Information
  • John Templeton Foundation (62106)
  • National Institutes of Health (1R01HL093009; 2R01HL093009; R01HL120725; UL1RR024131; UL1TR001872; P30DK098722)
  • National Institutes of Health (U01 CA176726; R01 CA163451)
  • National Institutes of Health (U01-HL145386)
  • National Institutes of Health (U01-HL41642; U01-HL41652; U01-HL41654; U01-HL65520; U01-HL65521; R01-HL109315; R01HL109301; R01HL109284; R01HL109282; R01HL109319)

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