System of belief inventory (SBI-15R): A validation study in Italian cancer patients on oncological, rehabilitation, psychological and supportive care settings

Aims and background. Spiritual and religious needs are part of a patient's clinical history. The aim of the study was to validate the System of Belief Inventory (SBI-15R) in Italy. It is a feasible way to collect useful information on spiritual needs and resources of patients at any stage of the disease. Methods. After the translation procedure, the psychometric properties of the Italian version of SBI-15R were evaluated in patients with non-advanced cancer cared for in four care settings. All patients were administered the Italian version of SBI-15R together with an hoc item inquiring about spirituality - "I believe I am a spiritual person", which was supposed to be correlated with the SBI-15R score. Results. A total of 257 patients were enrolled (mean age, 53.6 years; 191 females, 50% breast cancers, 12% had mestastases). As regards spirituality and religious beliefs, 47.9% were churchgoers; 42% believers but not churchgoers, and 7.8% non-believers; 86.7% of the patients were catholic. The construct validity was high both for the Belief Scale (Cronbach alpha = 0.946) and for the Support Scale (Cronbach alpha = 0.897). The mean (± SD) SBI-15R scores of the different groups of patients (knowngroups validity) for the "Support" scale was 9.7 (± 3.4) for churchgoers, 4.9 (± 3.2) for believers non-churchgoers, and 0.8 (± 1.4) for non-believers (P <0.0001, F test). For the "beliefs" scale, it was 25.4 (± 4.8) for churchgoers, 18.1 (± 6.3) for believers nonchurchgoers, and 3.4 (± 3.5) for non-believers (P <0.0001, F test). Regarding the test-retest reliability (n = 68), Lin's concordance correlation for the "Support" scale was 0.890 (0.841; 0.939 95% CI) and for the "Belief" scale was 0.969 (0.955; 0.984 95% CI). The correlation between the statement "I believe I ama spiritual person" and the SBI-15R scores was 0.475 for the "Support" scale and 0.473 for the "Belief" scale." Conclusions. The Italian version of SBI-15R is a valid and reliable assessment tool to evaluate religiousness and spirituality in cancer patients. Free full text available at www.tumorionline.it.