Purpose

The ESI-R aims to assess personal experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and life practices that refer to the concept of spirituality. The goal was to create a well-designed and standardized tool for measuring spirituality, which integrates existing psychometric concepts into a coherent and organized framework that would allow for better understanding and investigation of the various aspects of this concept.

Brief Description

The specific naming of the questionnaire was an effort to minimize the risk of presenting a rigid and manipulative view of a concept that is, by nature, ambiguous. The emphasis was placed on the fact that it is a tool for measuring the ways in which spirituality is expressed and not spirituality itself. The ESI-R is a self-report psychometric tool that includes 98 items and is the short form of the ESI. The full/original version includes 192 items and was developed based on factor analyses of data from 1,472 individuals. The five dimensions of spirituality measured are: experiential/phenomenological dimension, cognitive orientation toward spirituality, existential well-being, paranormal/supernatural beliefs, and religiosity. These dimensions are considered interrelated and reflect the different ways in which spirituality is expressed, both verbally and behaviorally. All questionnaire items are presented as a single scale.

Adaptation

The ESI-R was initially translated from English into Greek and then adapted into the Greek language by three Greek psychologists. The adaptation and psychometric properties of the tool are being studied in a Greek population. Since the questionnaire has not been standardized in Greece, the goal is to examine its factor structure in the Greek sample and compare it with results from international studies.

Scoring Method

The 30 items of the ESI-R are presented together as a single set, and each is rated on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). After reversing specific items, five scores are calculated based on the sum of the responses, each corresponding to one of the five dimensions: experiential/phenomenological dimension, cognitive orientation toward spirituality, existential well-being, paranormal/supernatural beliefs, and religiosity. Higher scores in each subscale indicate a stronger expression of the corresponding dimension of spirituality.

Validity

The ESI shows good predictive validity and construct validity, mainly convergent validity. Correlations between its dimensions and other psychometric tools related to spirituality show strong associations, supporting its conceptual integrity. It also shows satisfactory correlations with personality tools such as the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised, the Temperament and Character Inventory, and the MMPI-2. The psychometric properties of the short form ESI-R are equivalent to those of the full version and are sufficient for evaluating the five dimensions. These dimensions are considered independent and show satisfactory validity with respect to demographic variables, other psychometric tools related to spirituality, personality, psychopathology, and social desirability.

Reliability

The reliability indices for both the extended and short forms are high. Values range from 0.80 to 0.97 across the five dimensions, confirming strong internal consistency. Factor analyses with Varimax rotations reveal distinct factor structures, while Oblique rotations confirm that, although these dimensions may share some common variance, they remain separate constructs.

Main References

MacDonald, D. A. (1997). The development of a comprehensive factor analytically derived measure of spirituality and its relationship to psychological functioning. Doctoral dissertation, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
MacDonald, D. A. (2000). Spirituality: Description, measurement and relation to the Five Factor Model of personality. Journal of Personality, 68(1), 153-197.
MacDonald, D. A., & Holland, D. (2002). Examination of the psychometric properties of the Temperament and Character Inventory Self-Transcendence dimension. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 1013-1027.
MacDonald, D. A., & Holland, D. (2003). Spirituality and the MMPI-2. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(4), 399-410.
MacDonald, D. A., Kuentzel, J. G., & Friedman, H. L. (1999). A survey of measures of spiritual and transpersonal constructs.
MacDonald, D. A., LeClair, L., Holland, C. J., Alter, A., & Friedman, H. L. (1995). A survey of measures of transpersonal constructs. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 31(2), 155-177.
MacDonald, D. A., LeClair, L., Holland, C. J., Alter, A., & Friedman, H. L. (1995). A survey of measures of transpersonal constructs. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 27(2), 171-235.