Psychometric evaluation of the spiritual perspective scale for adolescents and young adults with cancer

Objective

To evaluate the reliability and validity of the spiritual perspective scale (SPS) for adolescents and young adults with cancer.

Methods

The study was conducted with 277 adolescents and young adults with cancer aged 10–24 years who were recruited from Taiwan and Korea. The reliability of the SPS was assessed using Cronbach's α. Its factor structure was determined by exploratory factor analysis. Known-group validity was tested by comparing resilience scores between two groups and between countries using t test.

Results

Cronbach's α values for the SPS was 0.94, and item–total correlation values ranged from 0.53 to 0.84. Factor analysis generated two factors (spiritual behaviors and spiritual beliefs) that explained 78.02% of the total variance, with factor loadings ranging from 0.51 to 0.94. Participants with lower resilience had significantly lower spirituality scores compared to those with higher resilience (t = 3.13, P = 0.002). The SPS scores were not significantly different between participants in Taiwan and Korea (t = 1.09, P = 0.276). However, the spiritual beliefs subscale scores did show a significant difference between these groups (t = 2.74, P = 0.007).

Conclusions

The spiritual perspective scale is a valid and reliable tool for measuring the spirituality of adolescents and young adults with cancer in Taiwan and Korea. The SPS showed sensitivity in detecting variations in spiritual beliefs between adolescents and young adults with cancer in Taiwan and Korea.