title: Spiritual and religious experiences of adolescent psychiatric inpatients versus healthy peers.
abstract: One hundred twenty-two adolescent psychiatric inpatients with depressive disorders and 80 healthy peers were administered the INSPIRIT, a measure of core spiritual experiences. Healthy adolescents reported a greater frequency of spiritual experiences and a more positive impact of such experiences on their belief in God than did their inpatient peers. Adolescent inpatients reported higher frequencies of experiencing angels, demons, God or guiding spirits; feeling unity with the earth and other living things; and with near death or life after death as compared to healthy peers. Overall, females reported higher frequency of spiritual experiences and higher impact of the experience on their belief in God than did males. It was concluded that the INSPIRIT is a feasible spiritual assessment tool for adolescent populations and may be used by chaplains as a means for guiding clinical conversations with adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Cincinnati Children's Hospital College Hill Campus, 5642 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45224, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Grossoehme
authors.forename: Sian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cotton
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leonard
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000298:Adolescent, Hospitalized / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002604:Chaplaincy Service, Hospital; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010327:Pastoral Care; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D029181:Spirituality