Development and psychometric testing of the Spiritual Care Inventory instrument

This article is a report of the development and psychometric testing of the Spiritual Care Inventory.

Research supporting the positive association between spirituality and health has lead to interest in providing spiritual care in healthcare settings. Few instruments exist that measure the provision of spiritual care.

In February/March 2007, a convenience sample of 298 adult and paediatric acute care, ambulatory, home health, hospice staff and rehab nurses at two hospitals (n = 248) and graduate students at a school of nursing (n = 50) completed a 48-item initial version of the Spiritual Care Inventory. In study 2 from July through August 2007, 78 staff nurses at one hospital (n = 30) and a different cohort of graduate students at a school of nursing (n = 48) completed the 18-item second version of the Spiritual Care Inventory.

Exploratory factor analysis in study 1 supported a 3-factor solution (spiritual care interventions, meaning making and faith rituals) with internal consistency measures for the subscales above 0·80. In study 2, internal consistency remained high.

Factor structures identify that spiritual care is a process of intervention, meaning making and faith rituals.