Spiritual Well-Being Measurement of Older Adults in a Community-Dwelling: A Short-Form Development

Abstract

This combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was performed in Chiang Mai, Samut Prakan, Nakhon Ratchasima, and Nakhon Si Thammarat to develop the general measurement tool of spiritual well-being among older adults who are living in the community. The research was divided into two phases. The first phase was a pilot questionnaire with 41 questions for 106 older adults, and ten focus group discussions. The exploratory factor analysis extracted and reduced the questionnaire to 30 questions. The revised questionnaires were used in the second phase survey on 512 older adults. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis affirmed the fit model of 12 questions on the four components of spiritual well-being (satisfaction, social participation, faith, and awareness), which explain the spiritual well-being condition of older adults, with a 73.8% extraction. Cronbach's coefficient of scale reliability (a) = 0.836, while the inter-item to total correlation was 0.328-0.682. Moreover, the reliability of each component was also high (0.759 < Cronbach a < 0.846). Therefore, the evaluation of spiritual health and well-being, as determined by the short-form (12 questions), is reliable and can apply as a screening tool for spiritual assessment, especially in the case of older adults in the Thai community.