Assessment of spirituality/religiosity in the context of health related quality of life

Patients' evaluations of their health status (health related quality of life, HRQOL) are increasingly taken into account in medical research and practice. In the Anglo-American literature a growing interest in including the life domain, spirituality/religiosity" as a component of HRQOL is observed. German studies in this research area are still scarce. As a guidance for further research, this paper gives an overview of instruments for the assessment of spirituality/religiosity in the context of HRQOL-research. Special attention is payed to German scales and adaptations. Since only few of the established multidimensional HRQOL-instruments include spirituality/religiosity, several short scales are described that allow additional assessment of spirituality/religiosity in an economical way.