Dimensions of Religion/Spirituality and Relevance to Health Research

This study aimed to identify unique religion/ spirituality (R/S) factors that account for variation in R/S measures of interest to health research. A 127-item questionnaire that included R/S items from classic, personality, clinical, and recent R/S-health research was administered to California state college students (n = 846) and to members of two California churches (n = 425). A seven-factor solution emerged that explained 61.5% of total variance that replicated across independent samples and that was highly stable across diverse subgroups. A large primary factor (28% of explained variance) included a number of key R/S measures assessing R/S motivation, devotion, and coping. Six other factors, each accounting for 6% to 9%, supported the discriminant validity of social support, existential well-being, extrinsic motivation, religious proscription, and two personality factors (spiritual and self transcendence). The link between current results and literature on health is discussed in terms of current causal models.