Description

The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) is a brief, self-report tool developed by Koenig, Meador, and Parkerson at Duke University. Its purpose is to measure three main dimensions of religiosity: organized religious activity, non-organized religious activity, and intrinsic religiosity.

Goal

The goal of DUREL is to provide a reliable and valid tool for assessing religiosity in epidemiological and clinical research. This tool allows researchers to examine the relationship between religiosity and various psychological, social, and health outcomes, facilitating the study of how religiosity affects health and well-being.

Analysis

DUREL consists of 5 questions covering the following three dimensions:
Organized Religious Activity (ORA):
This dimension assesses participation in religious services or activities, such as attending church or participating in religious groups.
Question 1: How often do you attend religious services?
Non-Organized Religious Activity (NORA):
This dimension includes individual religious practices, such as prayer, study of religious texts, or personal worship.
Question 2: How often do you participate in private religious activities, such as prayer, meditation, or study of religious texts?
Intrinsic Religiosity (IR):
This dimension evaluates the extent to which religious beliefs and values influence the individual’s daily life and behavior.
Questions 3-5: These questions ask participants to evaluate statements related to the importance of religion in their life and how their religious beliefs guide their daily actions.

Scoring

Responses to the DUREL questions are scored using a Likert scale:
For the first two questions (ORA and NORA):
1 = Never
2 = Rarely (a few times per year)
3 = Sometimes per month
4 = Sometimes per week
5 = More than once a week
For the last three questions (IR):
1 = Strongly disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = Neither agree nor disagree
4 = Agree
5 = Strongly agree
The answers are combined to produce total scores for each dimension of religiosity.

References

Koenig, H. G., Meador, K. G., & Parkerson, G. R. (1997). Religion Index for Psychiatric Research: A 5-item measure for use in health outcome studies. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 885-886.
Koenig, H. G. (1997). Use of the Duke Religion Index in stress, coping, and health research. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, San Diego, CA.
Koenig, H. G., King, D. E., & Carson, V. B. (2012). Handbook of Religion and Health. Oxford University Press.
Idler, E. L., & Kasl, S. V. (1997). Religion among disabled and nondisabled persons II: Attendance at religious services as a predictor of the course of disability. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 52(6), S306-S316.