Establishing a 'Physician's Spiritual Well-being Scale' and testing its reliability and validity

Area of Science:

• Medical Psychology
• Psychometrics
• Physician Well-being

Background:

• Physician spiritual well-being is crucial for healthcare.
• Existing literature lacks a validated scale for assessing physician spiritual well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Physician's Spiritual Well-Being Scale (PSpWBS).
• To provide a reliable instrument for measuring spiritual well-being in physicians.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative data collection via interviews and focus groups.
• Development of a 25-item scale based on qualitative analysis and literature review.
• Psychometric testing including reliability (Cronbach's α, split-half) and validity assessments on 177 physicians.
• Factor analysis to identify scale domains.

Main Results:

• The Physician's Spiritual Well-Being Scale (PSpWBS) was established with 25 items across four domains: physician's characteristics, medical practice challenges, response to changes, and overall well-being.
• The scale demonstrated satisfactory reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.864) and validity.
• Factor analysis confirmed good internal consistency for each domain (Cronbach's α between 0.625 and 0.794).
• Total variance explained was 65.65%.

Conclusions:

• The PSpWBS is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing physician spiritual well-being.
• The scale can be utilized in clinical and research settings to evaluate and support physicians' spiritual health.
• Further research can explore the application of the PSpWBS in diverse physician populations.