Open AccessPsychometric Assessment of SpiDiscI: Spiritual Distress Scale for Palliative Care Patients in India
Author(s) -
Joris Gielen,
Komal Kashyap,
Supriya Singh,
Sushma Bhatnagar,
Santosh K. Chaturvedi
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
indian journal of palliative care/indian journal of palliative care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.395
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1998-3735
pISSN - 0973-1075
DOI - 10.25259/ijpc_50_21
Subject(s) - medicine , palliative care , cronbach's alpha , spiritual care , distress , quality of life (healthcare) , rating scale , cancer pain , visual analogue scale , scale (ratio) , physical therapy , clinical psychology , family medicine , cancer , psychometrics , spirituality , nursing , alternative medicine , psychology , developmental psychology , physics , pathology , quantum mechanics
Objectives: Spirituality has an impact on the quality of life of palliative care patients and it influences the way in which they experience their disease. Spiritual distress is a common issue among palliative care patients in India that is best assessed through a tool specifically designed for them. This study presents the findings of a psychometric assessment of SpiDiscI: a 16-item spiritual distress scale for Hindi speaking palliative care patients in India. Materials and Methods: This study used a non-experimental cross-sectional sample survey design. 400 cancer patients undergoing pain treatment at the pain and palliative care unit of a tertiary cancer hospital in New Delhi enrolled in the study and completed the study’s questionnaire. The questionnaire contained a section on demographic information, a numerical rating scale (NRS) for pain, SpiDiscI, FACIT-Sp-12, and WHOQOL-BREF. A subset of 50 patients with stable pain completed SpiDiscI a 2 nd time 2 weeks after the first administration of the scale to assess test-retest reliability. Results: The scale’s internal consistency is very good (Cronbach’s Alpha 0.85). Spiritual distress scores ranged from 0 to 93.8 (mean 37.1, SD 23.6). Significant negative correlations between SpiDiScI and both FACIT-Sp-12 (R = –0.16, P = 0.001) and WHOQOL-BREF (R = –0.27, P < 0.001) confirmed convergent validity. There was no significant association with NRS pain scores (R = 0.06, P = 0.224). The highly significant association (R = 0.75, P < 0.001) of the scores on assessments 2 weeks apart confirmed test-retest reliability. Conclusion: SpiDiScI is a reliable and valid measure to assess spiritual distress in research among Hindi speaking palliative care patients in India.