Psychometric Validation and Translation of Religious and Spiritual Measures

Scale development, validation, and translation are complicated and often arduous procedures that involve considerable cost, time, personnel, and skills necessary to perform the complex statistical analyses required. The need to follow a standard procedure when developing new scales and translating old scales into new languages is essential in order to ensure that researchers accurately measure what they are claiming to measure. Well-designed scales form the foundation for much of the quantitative research conducted today in the psychological, social, behavioral and physical health sciences. This is also true for studies that examine the relationship between religiosity and/or spirituality (R/S) and health. The relationship between R/S and health is a complex one, requiring the development of measures that comprehensively, sensitively, reliably, and accurately measure R/S. As with many other emerging areas in the health sciences, quantitative measurement using psychometrically sound scales and the translation of existing scales into other languages is essential for advancement of the field of religion and health. In this article, a standard procedure for developing, validating, and translating multi-item scales is described.