title: A review of spiritual and religious measures in nursing research journals: 1995-1999.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A series of systematic reviews has revealed relatively high levels of interest in religion and spirituality in different nursing specialties, but not in general nursing research journals.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To identify the extent to which spirituality and religiousness were measured in all quantitative and qualitative research articles published in Research in Nursing and Health, Nursing Research, Advances in Nursing Science (ANS), and Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship from 1995 to 1999.
  
  
  METHODS
  A full-text search was conducted of ANS and Image using the Ovid search system. Nursing Research and Research in Nursing and Health were hand searched for spiritual/religious measures. Characteristics of selected studies, the measures taken, and their uses were coded for data analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 564 research studies were identified, of which 67 (11.9%) included at least one measure of spirituality or religiousness. A significant difference was found between the percentage of qualitative and quantitative studies that contained measures of these concepts. Of the 119 qualitative studies, 23 (19.3%) contained a measure of religion or spirituality, compared to 44 of the 445 (9.9%) quantitative studies. Nominal indicators of religious affiliation were the most commonly used measures in the quantitative studies and measures of religion and spirituality were rarely used in the analyses. Although only a few quantitative or qualitative studies intended to focus on religion or spirituality, these themes often emerged spontaneously in the qualitative research.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Research in Nursing and Health, Advances in Nursing Science, Nursing Research, and Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship all published research measuring spirituality and religiousness during the time-period studies. The rate at which spirituality and religion appeared in these nursing research articles is substantially higher than that found in most fields outside of nursing. Even more frequent inclusion of spiritual and religious variables and richer measures of spirituality and religiousness would help to increase the available scientific information on the role of spirituality and religion in nursing care.
authors.affiliation: UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion, USA.
authors.forename: Shelley Dean
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Kilpatrick
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Weaver
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: McCullough
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Puchalski
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Judith C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Hays
authors.forename: Carol J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Farran
authors.forename: Kevin J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Flannelly
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009732:Nursing Care; D015399:Nursing Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D029181:Spirituality