Design and Evaluation of the Spiritual Health Locus of Control Scale (SHLCS) in the Iranian Students

Background and Purpose: The spiritual dimension is one of the health dimensions; however, its measurement faces some serious problems, owing to the lack of a clear and comprehensive definition, as well as the challenges present in its spiritual conceptualization. Therefore, the present study aimed to design and evaluate the instrumental psychometric properties, which are matched to the cultural norms of Iranian students society, so as to assess their spiritual health. Materials and Methods: This research was carried out on 390 university students in Gonabad who were selected by stratified random sampling (based on their field of study). In order to calculate the validity of the questionnaire (SHLCS(, the factor analysis method was used by principal component analysis, and Cronbach's alpha method was used to evaluate the reliability. Results: The findings of the factor analysis section indicated that Varimax rotation revealed four components, including active spiritual life, faith / spiritual life, passive spirituality, and divine mercy. Moreover, it was found that the whole questionnaire and all sub-tests enjoyed a high reliability coefficient. It is worth mentioning here that there was no significant difference between the total score and the components of the spiritual health locus of control based on gender. Conclusion: Based on the results of the study, the Persian version of the SHLCS has appropriate validity and reliability in students.