Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality for Use in Health Research is a report, originally published in 1999, by a Fetzer Institute / National Institute on Aging working group on the measurement of religion and spirituality. A revised version with a new preface was published in 2003. The book presents a series of 12 self-report questionnaire measures, each focused on a particular aspect of religiousness or spirituality, along with reviews of underlying theory and supporting research. The book's purpose is to provide validated measures of spiritual and religious factors in health research. The book includes the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS), a practical measure with selected items from the 12 previous chapters. The book has been widely cited in health and behavioral science research, and several subsequent publications have been partially or entirely dedicated to evaluating and critiquing the measures.
Topics covered Both editions contain an introduction, followed by 12 chapters, each on the measurement of a particular aspect ("domain") of religion or spirituality. Combining all these questions gives the Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality. (MMRS). Concluding pages of each edition select items for a briefer 38-item version of the questionnaire (BMMRS), along with data from a US national survey that incorporated many of its items. Background and purpose. The Introduction states the book is responding to "a growing body of literature.... indicat[ing] that various dimensions of religiousness and spirituality may enhance subjective states of well-being... lower levels of depression and psychological distress... and reduce morbidity and mortality.... elicit[ing] considerable attention from medical researchers in epidemiology, psychology, sociology, gerontology, and other fields" (p. 1). However,
Health researchers who seek to include religious or spiritual domains in their studies typically confront various problems. Few health researchers have a scholarly background in religiousness/spirituality and most are not acquainted with the long history of attempts to conceptualize and measure multiple dimensions of religiousness... [and] we currently have no widely used and validated set of standard measures for key religious/spiritual domains to recommend to interested health researchers (pp. 1-2)
Thus, "the NIA and the Fetzer Institute established a core working group to:
Identify those domains of religiousness/spirituality most likely to impact health Suggest potential mechanisms whereby these variables might operate; and Provide a short multidimensional survey for use in clinical research." (p. 2) Plausibility of health effects. The Introduction described a variety of "potential mechanisms" by which religiou/spirituality might affect health. These include "behavioral mechanisms" (e.g., less drug abuse), "social mechanisms" (e.g., community ties), "psychological mechanisms" (e.g., emotional support or religious coping), and physiological mechanisms" (e.g., prayer or meditation that elicits a "relaxation response") (pp. 3–4). Cultural orientation. The Introduction also noted that "While many of the items have a strong Judeo-Christian focus... the group also proposed a number of items relevant to the growing proportion of Americans who engage in spiritual activities outside the content of churches and synagogues" (p. 3). Domain-focused chapters. The titles of the 12 domain-focused chapters, each written by one of the committee members, are shown in the adjacent table. A sample question from each chapter's questionnaire measure is also shown in the table. Brief measure. The final chapter contains a "short form" (BMMRS) with 36 items mostly drawn from the longer measures that appear in the previous 12 chapters (see table). Two additional items elicit a respondent's overall self-ranking (e.g., "To what extent to you consider yourself a spiritual person?", with a similar question about being a "religious person"). This chapter is entitled:
Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality: 1999 Survey data. The appendix contains results from administering the BMMRS to a US nationally representative sample, through the General Social Survey, in 1998. For example, it was found that 24.4 percent of US adults reported engaging in private prayer "more than once a day", and 9.0 percent reported engaging in meditation "more than once a day" (p. 92). The appendix is entitled:
Appendix A: Additional Psychometric and Population Distribution Data
Response and influence By 2010, the book had been cited more than 350 times in scientific publications. Critiques and evaluations of the MMRS or BMMRS have appeared in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Research on Aging, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Journal of Religion and Health, Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, and elsewhere. In the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Harold G. Koenig wrote that
The Fetzer Institute’s Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality is rapidly becoming the standard measure of religiousness/spirituality in the spirituality and health field overall, given its comprehensive nature... There also exist national norms for the short version of this instrument (p. 352).
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