Assessment of mental health, religion and culture: the development and examination of psychometric measures (Part X)

Abstract

This Special Issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture marks Part X of a series entitled Assessment of Mental Health, Religion and Culture: The development and examination of psychometric measures... (Lewis, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2019d, 2020a, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b; Lewis & Krok, 2020a, 2020b). This series aims to provide a dedicated forum for researchers to publish data on newly developed measures, or indeed established measures, that are of practical value for researchers interested in examining the relationship between the constructs of mental health, religion, and culture. Over the last six years or so, this series has become almost a biannual fixture in the content of Mental Health, Religion & Culture. The frequency of publication affirms the popularity of this series. The series has now become a well-established resource for researchers and practitioners alike. Previous articles have been presented in three areas. First, those articles focused on the psychometric properties of recently developed new scales. Second, those articles focused on assessing the psychometric properties of published scales translated into another language. Third, those articles focused on assessing the psychometric properties of scales employed in various cultural contexts and religious samples. The present Special Issue continues with this format In addition to this Editorial, this Special Issue consists of nine articles. First, four articles are presented that have focused on the development of new scales. Francis and Village (2021) report among a sample of 4,449 Church of England clergy (29%) and laity (71%), the development of The Index of Balanced Affect Change (TIBACh). Francis et al. (2021) report among samples of 338 Anglican clergy serving in the Church in Wales, 484 Presbyterian clergy serving in the Church of Scotland, and 422 Salvation Army Officers serving in the UK, the development of the Francis Owl-Lark Indices (FOLI). Hall et al. (2021) report among samples of 353 and 235 self-identified “Christians who have suffered” in the United States recruited through MTurk, and a sample of 174 self-assigned Christian students in the US the development of the Christian Sanctification of Suffering Scale. Ismail (2021) reports among samples of 182 and 59 Kurdish university students and 71 university lecturers, the development of the Life-view Scale in the Kurdish language. Second, three articles are presented that have focused on the evaluation of the psychometric properties of previously published scales that have been translated into other languages. Esat et al. (2021) report among two samples (n = 46 bilingual Turkish participants; n = 532 Muslim Turkish-speaking individuals, about half of whom lived in the United States) of Turkish-speaking adults the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Duke University Religion Index (Koenig & Büssing, 2010). Yıldırım and Tanrıverdi (2021) report among two samples (online sample, n = 228; paper-pencil sample, n = 200) of Turkish students the satisfactory psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Fragility of Happiness Scale (Joshanloo et al., 2015).