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

Not all mindfulness is equal: certain facets of mindfulness have important implications for well-being and mental health across the lifespan

The connections between the five facets of mindfulness, well-being, and mental health across the lifespan have traditionally been investigated using variable-centered approaches. Less research has investigated these relationships from a person-centered, profile-based approach. In this work, we aimed to identify the profiles of mindfulness in a Canadian lifespan sample (14 to 90 years of age) and investigate how these profiles compared on age, well-being, and mental health. An age- and gender-balanced sample of 1,600 participants completed a questionnaire that measured the five facets of mindfulness; life satisfaction; existential well-being; and anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms. A latent profile analysis was conducted. Five profiles based on the five-facet model of mindfulness were identified: high mindfulness, moderate mindfulness, low mindfulness, nonjudgmentally aware, and judgmentally observing. The 3-step approach to profile comparisons was used to assess age, mental health, and well-being differences across the profiles. Those in the high mindfulness and nonjudgmentally aware profiles were generally older, while the judgmentally observing profile contained younger individuals. Those in the high mindfulness and nonjudgmentally aware profiles reported the greatest mental health and well-being. Conversely, those in the low mindfulness and judgmentally observing profiles had worse mental health than the other profiles. The moderate mindfulness profile was situated between these profile groups on age, mental health, and well-being outcomes. This pattern of results has implications for mindfulness-based intervention research and practice to better account for heterogeneity in mindfulness and better support well-being across the lifespan.

Structure of spirituality among high-school students differs depending on relationship with someone or something Greater (RSG)

Purpose: To investigate the structure of spirituality among teenagers, who live in a secular country, employing a QoL assessment, the EORTC QLQ-SWB32. Methods: Japanese high-school students, 15 to 17 years of age, answered EORTC QLQ-SWB32, which had 5 scales: Relationships with Others, Relationship with Self (RS), Existential, Relationship with Someone or Something Greater (RSG), and Change. It had “skip” items 22 and 23 (score range:0–200), which distinguished non-believers (score:0), light believers (score:33–66), and deep believers (score:100–200). Cronbach’s alpha and principal component analysis (PCA) were investigated. Correlations between item-32 (global spiritual well-being (SWB)) scores and 5 scale-scores were estimated. Global SWB scores were compared among groups via one-way ANOVA. Results: Among 283 male students, there were 142 non-believers (50%), 98 light believers (35%), and 43 deep believers (15%). Cronbach’s alpha values of the five scales were above 0.7 for deep believers. However, RSG did not show internal consistency for non-believers and light believers. PCA showed that the RSG items constructed a RSG scale for deep believers but did not make any scale for non-believers and light believers. The correlation coefficients between global SWB and RSG increased in order of non-believers (r = 0.295), light believers (r = 0.399), and deep believers (r = 0.559). RS correlated with global SWB in non-believers and light believers (r<- 0.4). Among groups, light believers had significantly better global SWB than non-believers and deep believers (p = 0.0312). Conclusion: The structure of spirituality among high-school students differs depending on RSG. And RS might be critical for students without sense of RSG. (250words)

Posttraumatic Growth and Its Measurement: A Closer Look at the PTGI’s Psychometric Properties and Structure

Despite negative connotations, surviving trauma can result in improvements in some domains of a person’s life. This phenomenon is known as posttraumatic growth (PTG), and it is typically measured using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Given the ambiguous results of the existing validation studies, the present study aimed to verify the psychometric properties of the Slovak version of the PTGI in a representative sample of Slovak citizens. Although the results suggest that a modified one-factor structure fit the data best, other issues, such as extremely high correlations between the latent factors related to the PTGI’s factor structure, were observed. It is likely that the application of the latent variable model does not represent the essence of PTG adequately and the network approach thus appears to be a far more suitable conceptualization of PTG. More detailed information on between-person differences and within-person changes in PTG could help to tailor more effective interventions or preventive programs.