The NERSH International Collaboration on Values, Spirituality and Religion in Medicine: Development of Questionnaire, Description of Data Pool, and Overview of Pool Publications
Niels Christian Hvidt,
Alex Kappel Kørup,
Farr A. Curlin,
Klaus Baumann,
Eckhard Frick,
Jens Søndergaard,
Jesper Bo Nielsen,
René dePont Christensen,
Ryan Lawrence,
Giancarlo Lucchetti,
Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan,
Azimatul Karimah,
Andreas Schulze,
Inga Wermuth,
Esther Schouten,
René Hefti,
Eunmi Lee,
Nada A. AlYousefi,
Christian Balslev van Randwijk,
Can Kuseyri,
Tryphon Mukwayakala,
Miriam Wey,
Micha Eglin,
Tobias Opsahl,
Arndt Büssing
Affiliations
Niels Christian Hvidt
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
Alex Kappel Kørup
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
Farr A. Curlin
Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, Duke University, Durham NC 27613, USA
Klaus Baumann
Caritas Science and Christian Social Work, Faculty of Theology, Freiburg University, Freiburg im Breisgau 79098, Germany
Eckhard Frick
Research Centre Spiritual Care, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, The University Hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar, Langerstr. 3, Munich 81675, Germany
Jens Søndergaard
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
Jesper Bo Nielsen
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
René dePont Christensen
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
Ryan Lawrence
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA
Giancarlo Lucchetti
Department of Medicine, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Avenida Eugênio de Nascimento s/n-Aeroporto, Juiz de Fora 36038330, MG, Brazil
Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan
Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Azimatul Karimah
Department of Psychiatry, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, East Java 60115, Indonesia
Andreas Schulze
Medical Faculty, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, München 81377, Germany
Inga Wermuth
Medical Faculty, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, München 81377, Germany
Esther Schouten
Medical Faculty, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, München 81377, Germany
René Hefti
Medical Faculty, University of Bern, Bern 3012, Switzerland
Eunmi Lee
Caritas Science and Christian Social Work, Faculty of Theology, Freiburg University, Freiburg im Breisgau 79098, Germany
Nada A. AlYousefi
College of Medicine, King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh 11461, Saudi Arabia
Christian Balslev van Randwijk
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
Can Kuseyri
Medical Faculty, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, München 81377, Germany
Tryphon Mukwayakala
Medical Faculty, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, München 81377, Germany
Miriam Wey
Medical Faculty, University of Basel, Basel 4003, Switzerland
Micha Eglin
Medical Faculty, University of Basel, Basel 4003, Switzerland
Tobias Opsahl
Research Unit of General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C 5000, Denmark
Arndt Büssing
Institute of Integrative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Gerhard-Kienle-Weg 4, Herdecke D-58313, Germany
Modern healthcare research has only in recent years investigated the impact of health care workers’ religious and other moral values on medical practice, interaction with patients, and ethically complex decision-making. Thus far, no international data exist on the way such values vary across different countries. We therefore established the NERSH International Collaboration on Values in Medicine with datasets on physician religious characteristics and values based on the same survey instrument. The present article provides (a) an overview of the development of the original and optimized survey instruments, (b) an overview of the content of the NERSH data pool at this stage and (c) a brief review of insights gained from articles published with the questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed in 2002, after extensive pretesting in the United States and subsequently translated from English into other languages using forward-backward translations with Face Validations. In 2013, representatives of several national research groups came together and worked at optimizing the survey instrument for future use on the basis of the existing datasets. Research groups were identified through personal contacts with researchers requesting to use the instrument, as well as through two literature searches. Data were assembled in Stata and synchronized for their comparability using a matched intersection design based on the items in the original questionnaire. With a few optimizations and added modules appropriate for cultures more secular than that of the United States, the survey instrument holds promise as a tool for future comparative analyses. The pool at this stage consists of data from eleven studies conducted by research teams in nine different countries over six continents with responses from more than 6000 health professionals. Inspection of data between groups suggests large differences in religious and other moral values across nations and cultures, and that these values account for differences in health professional’s clinical practices.
