An Evaluation of the Research and Clinical Usefulness of the Spiritual Weil-Being Scale

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Abstract
Recent research results (Moody, 1988) have suggested that the Spiritual Weil-Being Scale (SWBS) may have ceiling effects. This study evaluated 17 selected religious and non-religious SWBS samples to determine if ceiling effects were present. Means and standard deviations were examined and upper and lower T-score limits were calculated for each sample. The mean SWBS score for the 17 samples was 101.08 (SD=13.32). All samples were able to measure the SWBS total score 4 standard deviations below the mean. In contrast, only 2 samples were able to measure the SWBS total score 2 standard deviations above the mean. These results indicate that, with religious samples, the SWBS does have ceiling effects. The psychometric implications suggest that previously reported relationships between the SWBS and other variables are underestimated for religious samples. In addition, these results indicate that the clinical usefulness of the SWBS is limited to low scores.