Measuring beliefs about suffering: development of the views of suffering scale.

ABSTRACT: Efforts to measure religion have intensified, and many specific dimensions have been identified. However, although belief is a core dimension of all world religions, little attention has been given to assessment of religious beliefs. In particular, 1 essential set of religious beliefs, those concerning the reasons for human suffering, has remained virtually unexamined despite the potential clinical relevance of these beliefs. To fill the need for a measure of people's beliefs about suffering, we developed the Views of Suffering Scale (VOSS). Analyses identified factors related to traditional Christian teachings, unorthodox theistic beliefs, karma, and randomness. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for VOSS subscale scores were good (αs and rs ≥ .70). Comparisons to measures o

SUBMITTER: Hale-Smith A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3695743 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature