Czech Version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale: Evaluation and Psychometric Properties

Abstract

Spirituality and spiritual well-being are connected with many areas of human life. Thus, especially in secular countries, there is a need for reliable validated instruments for measuring spirituality. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale is among the world’s most often used tools; therefore, the aim of this study was its psychometrical evaluation in the secular environment of the Czech Republic on a nationally representative sample (n = 1797, mean age: 45.9 ± 17.67; 48.6% men). A non-parametric comparison of different sociodemographic groups showed a higher disposition for experiencing spirituality among women, older people, and divorced persons. Based on confirmatory factor analysis, negatively worded items were excluded using a polychoric correlation matrix. The new version of the scale consisting of 11 items had good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.85; McDonald’s ωt = 0.91). The two-factor model of this shortened version, with factors corresponding to the Religious and the Existential subscales of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, shows a satisfactory fit with the data, where the loadings of all items ranged from medium to high. Thus, this study offered a new version of the tool, convenient for measuring spiritual well-being in secular conditions.

Psychometric Analysis of the Shortened Version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale on the Slovak Population (SWBS-Sk)

“…Our findings of differences in the level of spirituality among women and men are in line with previous research [ 24 , 27 , 57 , 58 , 59 ]. It is relatively common to talk about gender differences in psychology.…”

“…Three models supported in previous studies [ 24 , 27 , 42 , 43 , 44 ] were examined in the current study: first, a one-factor model that includes all the items (Model 1); then a two-factor model with items separated into two factors, the Religious Well-Being (RWB) and Existential Well-Being (EWB) subscales (Model 2); and finally, a two-factor structure including only positive-worded items (Model 3). A second-order hierarchical model and a bifactor model could not be tested because in these models, the covariance matrices of latent variables were not positively definite and thus the standard errors could not be computed.…”

“…Consequently, this adjusted version has been used in other studies [ 25 , 26 ]. Other studies focusing on the psychometric analysis of the full version of the SWBS on a representative sample of Czech adults [ 27 ] and Turkish respondents [ 28 ] have reported the same conclusion, i.e., a recommendation to exclude the negatively worded items.…”

“…The scale has been validated in various populations, for example, in adolescents [ 24 ], children [ 46 ], and adult populations [ 24 , 47 ]. The questionnaire has also been translated into various languages, such as Greek [ 48 ], Czech [ 27 ], and French [ 49 ]; for a review, see Ai et al [ 33 ]. Since the good psychometric properties of the original questionnaire do not warrant such results in its adaptations, multiple studies have worked with a modified factor structure of the scale [ 28 , 48 , 50 ].…”

Psychometric Analysis of the Czech Version of the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire

“…However, previous validation studies [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], examining psychometric properties of various measures of Czech versions, revealed that NWIs are frequently associated with both decreased internal consistency of a scale and FL. It is therefore possible that in similar language environments (e.g., Slovak or Polish), NWIs may influence the psychometric quality of an instrument in a similar way.…”