Spiritual Wellness Inventory (SWI)

Abstract

The Spiritual Wellness Inventory (SWI) is a multidimensional psychometric tool developed to assess the different components of Spiritual Wellness. Created by Elliott Ingersoll in 1996, the original SWI comprised 55 items distributed across 11 subscales. The scale is designed to measure an individual’s subjective sense of spiritual health across various domains, including their relationship with the divine, sense of purpose, community belonging, and capacity for forgiveness and hope. A subsequent revision, the SWI-R, refined the instrument to 48 items across 8 distinct factors, aiming to improve the psychometric properties and provide a cleaner measure of the core dimensions of spirituality in a cross-traditional context. The SWI is widely utilized in counseling and psychological research to understand the role of spirituality in overall well-being.

Keywords

Spiritual Wellness Inventory, SWI, spiritual health, psychometrics, counseling, Ingersoll, spiritual assessment, meaning, connectedness, forgiveness

Authors

Elliott Ingersoll

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory (SWI) is to provide a standardized, quantifiable measure of an individual’s level of spiritual wellness. Ingersoll sought to move beyond simple measures of religiosity or religious commitment to capture the broader, multidimensional aspects of spirituality that contribute to mental and emotional health. The scale is intended for use by researchers, counselors, and practitioners to identify specific areas of spiritual strength or deficit in clients, facilitating targeted interventions in counseling settings.

The SWI and its revised version (SWI-R) aim to capture spiritual dimensions that are generally considered universal, rather than specific to any single religious tradition, thus making the inventory applicable across diverse populations. The instrument operationalizes spiritual wellness into distinct factors, allowing for a nuanced understanding of how elements like hope, meaning in life, and connection to others interact within an individual’s spiritual framework.

Construct

The SWI measures the overarching construct of Spiritual Wellness, which is conceptualized as a dynamic, holistic state involving internal equilibrium, purposeful living, and connection to something greater than oneself. The original 55-item SWI was structured around 11 subscales that define this construct:

• Conception of the Absolute/Divine
• Meaning
• Connectedness (to others and nature)
• Mystery
• Spiritual Freedom
• Experience/Ritual
• Forgiveness
• Hope
• Knowledge/Learning
• Present-centeredness
• Fake Good (a potential validity scale)

The revised 48-item SWI-R streamlined this construct into 8 core factors: Spirituality, Meaningful Experiences/Hope, Understanding, Self Worth, Connectedness, Uncertainty, Control, and Inner Peace. These dimensions collectively represent the individual’s subjective experience of life’s transcendent aspects, self-awareness, personal growth, and interaction with the world.

Validity

Initial validation for the SWI was established through Ingersoll’s 1995 doctoral dissertation, focusing on content validity derived from extensive literature review and expert consensus on the dimensions of spiritual wellness. The scale was developed as a cross-traditional measure, demonstrating face validity across diverse spiritual and non-spiritual populations.

Subsequent research, including the work leading to the SWI-R, focused on improving the scale’s structural validity. The refinement of the scale into the SWI-R was driven by the need to address low internal consistency found in several subscales of the original 55-item version. Studies, such as the exploratory factor analysis conducted by Childs (2014), have examined the underlying structure, aiming to confirm that the revised subscales accurately measure distinct components of the spiritual wellness construct.

Reliability

The reliability of the original 55-item SWI, measured using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients, showed significant variability among the 11 subscales, indicating that some dimensions required further refinement. The reliability coefficients reported for the original SWI subscales are listed below:

• Conception of Divinity (Alpha 0.83)
• Meaning (Alpha 0.53)
• Connectedness (Alpha 0.56)
• Present-centeredness (Alpha 0.49)
• Mystery (Alpha 0.42)
• Experience/Ritual (Alpha 0.68)
• Hope (Alpha 0.63)
• Forgiveness (Alpha 0.54)
• Knowledge/Learning (Alpha 0.44)
• Fake Good (Alpha -0.03)
• Spiritual Freedom (Alpha 0.43)

While the Conception of Divinity subscale demonstrated strong internal consistency, many other dimensions exhibited poor to marginal reliability (Alphas below 0.60). This low consistency, particularly the negative Alpha for the Fake Good scale, led directly to the development of the 48-item SWI-R, which aimed to improve the internal consistency of the revised factors.

Factor Analysis

The structure of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory was initially derived from theoretical models of spiritual health. However, the varying reliability coefficients in the original SWI suggested that the hypothesized 11-factor structure might not be optimally supported by empirical data.

An important examination of the structure was conducted in 2014 by Childs, who performed an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on the SWI. This analysis, detailed in the doctoral dissertation, sought to empirically confirm the factorial structure of the inventory. The findings from such factor analytic studies are critical for supporting the move from the original 55-item scale to the more parsimonious and reliable 48-item SWI-R structure, which consolidates the dimensions into 8 factors, including Spirituality, Connectedness, and Inner Peace.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report inventory; Multidimensional scale

Format: Paper-and-pencil or online administration; 55 items (Original SWI) or 48 items (Revised SWI-R)

Language Available: English (Primary)

Population Group: General adult population seeking counseling or participating in wellness studies

Age Group: Adults (typically college-age and older)

Population Details: The scale is designed to be culturally and religiously neutral, applicable to individuals from diverse spiritual and secular backgrounds.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate their agreement with each statement using an 8-point Likert-type scale. The scoring instructions specify: Strongly Disagree = 1, 2, 3; Disagree = 4; Agree = 5, 6, 7; Strongly Agree = 8. Note that reverse scoring is applied to all odd items in the original inventory.

Keywords

psychological assessment, spirituality, well-being, counseling tool, self-report, Ingersoll, Cronbach’s Alpha, Forgiveness, Connectedness

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not provided in source)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Not provided in source)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Not provided in source)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The initial version of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory (SWI) was developed in 1996. Information regarding permissions and fees for current usage can often be obtained directly through the author’s official academic or professional website. An online resource for the test is available here: http://www.elliottingersoll.com/Spiritual_Wellness_Test.html.

Reference’s

The following references document the development and validation of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory:

• Ingersoll, R. E. (1994). Spirituality, religion, and counseling: Dimensions and relationships. Counseling and Values, 38, 98-112.
• Ingersoll, R. E. (1995). Construction and initial validation of the spiritual wellness inventory. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Kent State University.
• Ingersoll, R. E. (1998). Refining dimensions of spiritual wellness: A cross-traditional approach. Counseling and Values, 42, 156-165.
• Childs, Chivonna Y. (2014). EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE SPIRITUAL WELLNESS INVENTORY. doctoral dissertation. Cleveland State University. The original PDF can be downloaded here: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=csu1409218531&disposition=inline

Items of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory (SWI)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I don’t ever experience God’s presence in my life.

2. The meaning of life is a question I am at peace with.

3. I never feel compassion for other people.

4. I often feel a deep appreciation of every moment.

5. I never experience a sense of awe about life.

6. I have things I do to help me feel connected to life.

7. There are reasons to give up hope.

8. I feel called on to forgive others as God forgives me.

9. I reject most challenges to my beliefs.

10. I believe all people have a role in the web of life.

11. I feel unsafe in the world.

12. My sense of the divine increases my sense of Connectedness to other people.

13. I never experience my everyday life as meaningful.

14. I feel part of at least on healthy community that is important to me and greatly affects my life.

15. I don’t enjoy being absorbed in physical sensations.

16. Life is about growth and change.

17. I don’t know what to do to feel God’s presence.

18. Even when situations seem hopeless, I have faith they can change for the better.

19. If I forgive others, it really doesn’t help me.

20. The way I live brings me to a greater knowledge of who I really am.

21. I am a strict person insisting on doing things as correctly as possible.

22. I experience playful moments daily.

23. I never experience a strong inner sense of God’s presence.

24. I always reflect on the meaning of my life experiences.

25. I don’t feel a part of any real community.

26. I often feel fully present in each passing moment.

27. I am afraid to question my spiritual beliefs.

28. I see everyday life as sacred.

29. I have little faith that on some level my life will work out.

30. I have often been forgiven by others in my life.

31. I don’t investigate questions that arise in my life.

32. I have periods where it is hard to stop self-pity.

33. I feel coerced by images of what life should be about.

34. I am conscious of the divine in my daily activities.

35. I don’t get much meaning out of my life experiences.

36. I often notice things in nature while I am riding or walking from place to place.

37. When I attain a goal I don’t savor it before moving on to the next goal.

38. Ambiguity and uncertainty are healthy parts of life.

39. I have not developed new spiritual rituals as I have grown.

40. Every moment offers potential for hope.

41. I have resentments about past injuries.

42. The more I learn about myself the more I have to give.

43. I would rather mix with polite people than rebellious types.

44. I feel free to make strong commitments to things.

45. My sense of God decreases my sense of connectedness to nature.

46. My spirituality is very meaningful to me.

47. My spiritual community isn’t much help in celebrating life.

48. I don’t get tense thinking of things that lie ahead.

49. It is important to be in control of the sitations [situations] in which I find myself.

50. I have rituals that help me integrate the spiritual into my life.

51. I have not had difficult situations change for the better.

52. I am able to forgive anything a person may do.

53. I value knowledge except when it conflicts with my beliefs.

54. I wait until I am sure that my views are correct before speaking up.

55. I feel great pressure to live up to a social image.