applications

Applications:

Clinical Practice
The SWBS is useful for evaluation of the well-being of clinical patients and counseling clients in both individual and group settings. For example, given the high proportion of people who profess some form of religious belief or commitment (Gallup, 1980), the practitioner often sees clients with religious beliefs. The need for professionals to address those religious issues that may be involved in their clients' disorders, or draw upon the clients' spiritual resources as a reservoir of strength, are now well documented in mainline professional circles (Bergin, 1980, 1991). Therefore, practitioners may use the SWBS in order to assess the spiritual dimension of their clients' health.

Health Care
The SWBS is useful in hospitals, nursing care facilities, rehabilitation centers, and other agencies concerned with patient and resident care. For example, SWB scores provide a general global measure of the patient's perceived health and well-being, as is evident by the relation between SWB scores and adjustment to physical illness and being a counseling patient (Bufford, Paloutzian & Ellison, 1991; Ellison & Smith, 1991). The measure would be useful for assessing patient well-being following surgery or disease, in the face of terminal illness, or while making progress in a rehabilitation program. Finally, it may be useful to assess SWB among health care providers in order to match them with the health care recipients for whom they might be most effective.

Outcome Evaluation
The SWBS may be used in institutional settings when a measure of well-being is needed for patients in aggregate. Facilities that have developed group programs to increase patient well-being can use the SWBS to monitor the group performance over time, and therefore evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment program.

Congregational Assessment
The SWBS can be used in congregational settings in order to assess the religious and existential well-being of the entire church body. It can also be used to monitor well-being among special subgroups of the congregation, and to assess and increase or decreases in well-being over time due to implementation of church programs or other activities. Because the scale is nonsectarian, it can be used with diverse groups.

For more information on how the SWBS has been used, you may purchase the Research Bibliography that will provide a listing of all of the studies that have used the scale in their research.