The Multidimensional Measurement of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being: Recent Developments in Scale Validation and Clinical Applications

Abstract

Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) have been described extensively as being an integral part of subjective well-being and mental health, especially in Anglo-American regions. Accordingly, the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB) was developed in the European context to be able to contribute to the further development of this research field by means of a validated measure. In this paper, after an introduction to basic considerations about the scale, more recent developments (from 2012 to 2022) regarding the use of the MI-RSWB are presented. Thus, it is intended to focus here on (1) the presentation of standard values for the MI-RSWB for the Austrian general population, (2) several scale translations into different languages, (3) more recent data on the relationship between RSWB, personality, and mental health, and (4) the potential clinical applications of the RSWB dimensions. As a conclusion, further potential applications of the RSWB concept are discussed.