Measuring attitude towards Buddhism and Sikhism : internal consistency reliability for two new instruments

This paper describes and discusses the development and empirical properties of two new 24-item scales – one measuring attitude toward Buddhism and the other measuring attitude toward Sikhism. The scale is designed to facilitate inter-faith comparisons within the psychology of religion alongside the well-established Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. Data were obtained from a multi-religious sample of 369 school pupils aged between 13 and 15 in London. Application of the two scales demonstrated that adolescents had a more positive attitude to Buddhism than Sikhism. The findings confirm the reliability of the scales and commend them for further use

Prayer and psychological health: a study among sixth-form pupils attending Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland

Eysenck's dimensional model of personality includes two indicators of psychological health, defined as neuroticism and psychoticism. In order to examine the association between psychological health and prayer, two samples of sixth-form pupils in Northern Ireland (16- to 18-year-olds) attending Catholic (N = 1246) and Protestant (N = 1060) schools completed the abbreviated Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire alongside a simple measure of prayer frequency. The data demonstrated a positive association between prayer frequency and better levels of psychological health as assessed by Eysenck's notion of psychoticism. Among pupils attending both Catholic and Protestant schools, higher levels of prayer were associated with lower psychoticism scores. Among pupils attending Catholic schools, however, higher levels of prayer were also associated with higher neuroticism scores

Guidance on guidelines: Understanding the evidence on the uptake of health care guidelines

Rationale Regardless of health issue, health sector, patient condition, or treatment modality, the chances are that provision is supported by “a guideline” making professionally endorsed recommendations on best practice. Against this background, research has proliferated seeking to evaluate how effectively such guidance is followed. These investigations paint a gloomy picture with many a guideline prompting lip service, inattention, and even opposition. This predicament has prompted a further literature on how to improve the uptake of guidelines, and this paper considers how to draw together lessons from these inquiries. Methods This huge body of material presents a considerable challenge for research synthesis, and this paper produces a critical, methodological comparison of 2 types of review attempting to meet that task. Firstly, it provides an overview of the current orthodoxy, namely, “thematic reviews,” which aggregate and enumerate the “barriers and facilitators” to guideline implementation. It then outlines a “realist synthesis,” focussing on testing the “programme theories” that practitioners have devised to improve guideline uptake. Results Thematic reviews aim to provide a definitive, comprehensive catalogue of the facilitators and barriers to guideline implementation. As such, they present a restatement of the underlying problems rather than an improvement strategy. The realist approach assumes that the incorporation of any guideline into current practice will produce unintended system strains as different stakeholders wrestle over responsibilities. These distortions will prompt supplementary revisions to guidelines, which in turn beget further strains. Realist reviews follow this dynamic understanding of organisational change. Conclusions Health care decision makers operate in systems that are awash with guidelines. But guidelines only have paper authority. Managers do not need a checklist of their pros and cons, because the fate of guidelines depends on their reception rather than their production. They do need decision support on how to engineer and reengineer guidelines so they dovetail with evolving systems of health care delivery

Psychometric properties of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health-Related Quality of Life (CDC HRQOL) items in adults with arthritis

BACKGROUND: Measuring health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is important in arthritis and the SF-36v2 is the current state-of-the-art. It is only emerging how well the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HRQOL measures HRQOL for people with arthritis. This study's purpose is to assess the psychometric properties of the 9-item CDC HRQOL (4-item Healthy Days Core Module and 5-item Healthy Days Symptoms Module) in an arthritis sample using the SF-36v2 as a comparison. METHODS: In Fall 2002, a cross-sectional study acquired survey data including the CDC HRQOL and SF-36v2 from 2 North Carolina populations of adult patients reporting osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia; 2182 (52%) responded. The first item of both the CDC HRQOL and the SF-36v2 was general health (GEN). All 8 other CDC HRQOL items ask for the number of days in the past 30 days that respondents experienced various aspects of HRQOL. Exploratory principal components analyses (PCA) were conducted on each sample and the combined samples of the CDC HRQOL. The multitrait-multimethod matrix (MTMM) was used to compute correlations between each trait (physical health and mental health) and between each method of measurement (CDC HRQOL and SF36v2). The relative contribution of the CDC HRQOL in predicting the physical component summary (PCS) and the mental component summary (MCS) was determined by regressing the CDC HRQOL items on the PCS and MCS scales. RESULTS: All 9 CDC HRQOL items loaded primarily onto 1 factor (explaining 57% of the item variance) representing a reasonable solution for capturing overall HRQOL. After rotation a 2 factor interpretation for the 9 items was clear, with 4 items capturing physical health (physical, activity, pain, and energy days) and 3 items capturing mental health (mental, depression, and anxiety days). All of the loadings for these two factors were greater than 0.70. The CDC HRQOL physical health factor correlated with PCS (r = -.78, p < 0.0001) and the mental health factor correlated with MCS (r = -.71, p < 0.0001). The relative contribution of the CDC HRQOL in predicting PCS was 73% (R(2 )= .73) when GEN was included in the CDC HRQOL score and 65% (R(2 )= .65) when GEN was removed. The relative contribution of the CDC HRQOL in predicting MCS was 56% (R(2 )= .56) when GEN was included and removed. CONCLUSION: The CDC HRQOL appears to have strong psychometric properties in individuals with arthritis in both community-based and subspecialty clinical settings. The 9 item CDC HRQOL is a reasonable measure for overall HRQOL and the two subscales, representing physical and mental health, are reasonable when the goal is to examine those aspects

Congregational bonding social capital and psychological type : an empirical enquiry among Australian churchgoers

This study explores the variation in levels of bonding social capital experienced by individual churchgoers, drawing on data generated by the Australian National Church Life Survey, and employing a five-item measure of church-related bonding social capital. Data provided by 2065 Australian churchgoers are used to test the thesis that individual differences in bonding social capital are related to a psychological model of psychological types (employing the Jungian distinctions). The data demonstrated that higher levels of bonding social capital were found among extraverts (compared with introverts), among intuitive types (compared with sensing types) and among feeling types (compared with thinking types), but no significant differences were found between judging types and perceiving types

Cognitive interviewing techniques used in developing questionnaires on functional electrical stimulation in spinal cord injury

© 2016 MA Healthcare Ltd. Background/Aims: This paper illustrates the application of a technique, cognitive interviewing, which was used in the development of three questionnaires to determine the views of use of functional electrical stimulation by people with spinal cord injury, health care professionals and researchers working in spinal cord injury. Methods: Three questionnaires for the three populations were developed in order to explore views about the current and future use of functional electrical stimulation. The questionnaires were reviewed and discussed by the team. Cognitive interviews were carried out at participants’ homes, university or workplace and each interview lasted a mean time of 65 minutes. The interviewer used ‘think aloud’ techniques. They were transcribed and analysed using content analysis. Results: Twelve participants (four people with spinal cord injury, four health care professionals and four researchers) from across the United Kingdom took part. The process identified several areas for modification, including clarification of words, format and legibility of questions, changes to sections, and the layout of the questionnaires. Conclusions: Cognitive interviewing ensured that the questionnaires were readable, clear and relevant, unambiguous and related to current clinical practice and research. The technique resulted in good quality questionnaires with enhanced patient-centred language

More than money:developing an integrative multi-factorial measure of entrepreneurial success

This article conceptualises and operationalizes ‘subjective entrepreneurial success’ in a manner which reflects the criteria employed by entrepreneurs, rather than those imposed by researchers. Using two studies, a first qualitative enquiry investigated success definitions using interviews with 185 German entrepreneurs; five factors emerged from their reports: firm performance, workplace relationships, personal fulfilment, community impact, and personal financial rewards. The second study developed a questionnaire, the Subjective Entrepreneurial Success–Importance Scale (SES-IS), to measure these five factors using a sample of 184 entrepreneurs. We provide evidence for the validity of the SES-IS, including establishing systematic relationships of SES-IS with objective indicators of firm success, annual income and entrepreneur satisfaction with life and financial situation. We also provide evidence for the cross-cultural invariance of SES-IS using a sample of Polish entrepreneurs. The quintessence of our studies being that subjective entrepreneurial success is a multi-factorial construct, i.e. entrepreneurs value various indicators of success with money as only one possible option

Psychological type and prayer preferences: a study among Anglican clergy in the United Kingdom

This study applies the framework of Jungian psychological type theory to define eight aspects of prayer preference, namely: introverted prayer, extraverted prayer, sensing prayer, intuitive prayer, feeling prayer, thinking prayer, judging prayer, and perceiving prayer. On the basis of data provided by 1,476 newly ordained Anglican clergy from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, eight 7-item scales were developed to access these aspects of prayer preferences. Significant correlations were found between each prayer preference and the relevant aspect of psychological type accessed by the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. These data support the theory that psychological type influences the way in which people pray

Work-related psychological health among clergywomen in Australia

Drawing on the classic model of balanced affect, the Francis Burnout Inventory conceptualises good work-related psychological health among clergy in terms of negative affect being balanced by positive affect. This paper sets out to explore the relationship between work-related psychological health and psychological type (as assessed by the Francis Psychological-Type Scales) among a sample of 212 Australian clergywomen who completed the National Church Life Survey Form L in 2006. The data supported the internal consistency reliability of the Francis Burnout Inventory and Francis Psychological-Type Scales and found that work-related psychological health was positively related to extraversion and sensing

Psychological type profile of Canadian Baptist youth leaders: Implications for Christian education

A recent study of the psychological type profile of Christian youth workers in the UK drew attention to differences between the profiles of youth workers and clergy, and highlighted distinctive strengths and weaknesses that may be experienced by youth workers in Christian ministry. The present study, employing the Francis Psychological Type Scales among Canadian Baptist youth leaders (150 men, 186 women), cautions against generalizing on the basis of findings from the UK study. Among the Canadian Baptist youth leaders, compared with the UK Christian youth workers, there were higher proportions of introverts, sensing types, thinking types and judging types