Measuring Religiousness in Health Research: Review and Critique

Although existing measures of religiousness are sophisticated, no single approach has yet emerged as a standard. We review the measures of religiousness most commonly used in the religion and health literature with particular attention to their limitations, suggesting that vigilance is required to avoid over-generalization. After placing the development of these scales in historical context, we discuss measures of religious attendance, private religious practice, and intrinsic/extrinsic religious motivation. We also discuss measures of religious coping, wellbeing, belief, affiliation, maturity, history, and experience. We also address the current trend in favor of multi-dimensional and functional measures of religiousness. We conclude with a critique of the standard, “context-free” approach aimed at measuring “religiousness-in-general”, suggesting that future work might more fruitfully focus on developing ways to measure religiousness in specific, theologically relevant contexts.

Daniel E. HallEmail:

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Daniel E. Hall,   MD, MDiv, MHSc, is an Episcopal priest and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. He was the first Fellow in Religion and Health at Duke University and has written regarding the theological and philosophical challenges associated with research probing the empirical associations between religion and health. In addition to a busy practice of general surgery, his research also focuses on the formative influences (sacred and secular) that shape the moral imagination of both physicians and patients as they make decisions regarding medical care.