[Assessment of spirituality/religiosity in the context of health related quality of life]

Abstract

Patients' evaluations of their health status (health related quality of life, HRQOL) are increasingly taken into account in medical research and practice. In the Anglo-American literature a growing interest in including the life domain "spirituality/religiosity" as a component of HRQOL is observed. German studies in this research area are still scarce. As a guidance for further research, this paper gives an overview of instruments for the assessment of spirituality/religiosity in the context of HRQOL-research. Special attention is payed to German scales and adaptations. Since only few of the established multidimensional HRQOL-instruments include spirituality/religiosity, several short scales are described that allow additional assessment of spirituality/religiosity in an economical way.