John Fisher

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John W Fisher MSc, MEd, PhD, EdD, PhD is a qualified/experienced Pentecostal pastor, currently fellowshipping in an evangelical church, who is retiring after six decades of education and research spanning early childhood to palliative care with particular emphasis on spirituality and health, touching every continent except Antarctica.

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Comparing the influence of god and other transcendents on spiritual well-being

Religious Education Journal of Australia, 2014

ABSTRACT The Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) comprises 20 items, spread ev... more ABSTRACT The Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) comprises 20 items, spread evenly over four domains, assessing the quality of relationships people have with themselves, others, the environment, and/or with a Transcendent. The Transcendent domain of the original version of SHALOM was heavily God-oriented, as students with whom it was developed did not understand terms such as ‘higher power.’ Over the years SHALOM has been used, a few people have questioned its general applicability, because of the word ‘God.’ Therefore a generic form of SHALOM was recently developed which replaced the God-words with the word ‘Transcendent’, providing nineteen alternatives from which respondents could choose, including an option, “not an area in which I believe.” An invitation to complete a web-survey using this generic SHALOM instrument was sent to 600 people most of whom were involved in spirituality and religious studies; some were atheists. 453 complete returns have been analysed to show that the generic form of SHALOM yields acceptable psychometric properties. This presentation compares two methods of interpreting data from the survey. Using lived experience only, some variation was shown on Personal and Environmental spiritual wellbeing (SWB), with relationship with God dominating Transcendental SWB. The alternative dissonance method, comparing lived experience with ideals, shows greater sensitivity, with people who relate with God expressing least dissonance between ideals and lived experience over the four domains of spiritual well-being. Those who claim non-theistic Transcendents, such as fate, higher self and higher power, as their motivating forces in life show greatest dissonance, therefore less spiritual well-being. Relating with God helps people relate better with self and others compared with other Transcendents studied here. This finding has clear implications for Religious Education as a starting point by which to enhance students’ spiritual well-being in line with the Australian Ministers of Education’s edicts.

Palliative Care Doctors Need Help with Spiritual Wellbeing

Journal for the Study of Spirituality, May 1, 2012

Abstract Spirituality is widely recognized as a key component of holistic care for palliative car... more Abstract Spirituality is widely recognized as a key component of holistic care for palliative care patients. Are palliative care doctors able to include this in their role or should it be done by others? A survey of 300 palliative care doctors in Australia and New Zealand yielded a 52 per cent response rate, providing insight into their ideals, lived experiences and perceptions of help for patients, in four domains of spiritual wellbeing, assessed using the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM). Male palliative care doctors provided levels of help commensurate with their lived experience in two domains of spiritual wellbeing. Greater professional distancing of female palliative care doctors resulted in their perception of less holistic care being provided for patients. Palliative care doctors do not have adequate time, experience or training to provide all aspects of spiritual care, especially with regard to the relationship with God. Patients need holistic care provided by comprehensive, well-balanced teams. In brief, palliative care doctors need help personally and in providing spiritual care for patients.

Assessing spiritual well-being: relating with God explains greatest variance in spiritual well-being among Australian youth

The international journal of children's spirituality, Nov 1, 2013

ABSTRACT How do we set standards in assessing spiritual well-being (SWB)? Most measures provide o... more ABSTRACT How do we set standards in assessing spiritual well-being (SWB)? Most measures provide only scores on arbitrary scales. Therefore, if the questions differ, the scores are likely to as well. This paper reports on two scales developed with 460 Australian secondary school students, with diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, from state, Catholic, Christian Community and independent schools. The four domains model of spiritual health/well-being was the theoretical base from which 12 items were developed to reflect quality of relationships with each of self, others, environment and God/the Divine. The instrument with the five top-scoring items in each domain, known as Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), has been sought for use in over 200 studies in 20 languages. The second-highest sets of five items were extracted and found to form statistically valid factors, for a new instrument called SWBQ2. As would be expected, the mean values for the factor scores varied between SHALOM and SWBQ2, overall and by school type. However, regression analyses of the lived experience scores showed that relating with God provided greatest explanation of variance in SWB, on both measures. A double-response method introduced for SHALOM was also used with SWBQ2 to compare each person’s lived experience with their ideals, better reflecting quality of relationships, rather than just the arbitrary scores. There was negligible difference in dissonance scores on the four factors in both measures, that is, in comparing the difference between ideals and lived experiences. This method showed consistency in the quality of relationships reflecting SWB, contrasted with variance shown using only lived experience, as mentioned above. Relating with God was again most influential on SWB. These findings have implications for methods used in assessing SWB as well as outcomes.

Using secondary students’ views about influences on their spiritual well‐being to inform pastoral care

The international journal of children's spirituality, Dec 1, 2006

Using secondary students' views about influences on their spiritual well-being to inform pastoral... more

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Accounting for Spiritual Well-Being: God Wins over Other Transcendents

BRILL eBooks, 2016

The Importance of Relating with God for Spiritual Well-Being

BRILL eBooks, Apr 23, 2013

Twenty years of research in spiritual health/well-being culminate in this thesis. My PhD (1998), ... more Twenty years of research in spiritual health/well-being culminate in this thesis. My PhD (1998), University of Melbourne, presented a Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health/Well-Being. This formed the theoretical base for several spiritual well-being questionnaires, presented in my EdD (2009), University of Ballarat. The main instrument, Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), proposed a novel method of assessing quality of relationships which are posited as reflecting spiritual well-being. These relationships are of each person with themselves, others, the environment and/or with a Transcendent Other (God). Instead of just investigating lived experiences, SHALOM asks for two responses to each item. Each respondent's lived experience is compared with their stated ideals. Studies presented herein show that this double-response method, comparing ideal with actual, provides a statistically stronger measure of quality of relationships than lived experiences alone, thus spiritual well-being. Eighteen publications included in this thesis relate to studies of spiritual wellbeing in educational, healthcare and general community settings. A total of 52 studies, using SHALOM with 41686 people from 27 countries, have shown that, of the four sets of relationships measured by SHALOM, relating with God explains greatest variance in spiritual well-being, so is therefore most important. An international study with people involved with, as well as some opposed to, spirituality and religious education led to a generic form of SHALOM, in which the theistic words were replaced by 'Transcendent', with 19 alternatives provided from which to select preferred Transcendent, or none. This project revealed that relating with God, as Transcendent, provides greatest support for a person's relating with self and others, in contrast to help provided by non-theistic and non-religious Transcendents and not believing in Transcendents. This research implies that researchers need to investigate relationship with God in any study of spiritual well-being, whether or not it fits their personal worldview.

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The Four Domains Model: Connecting Spirituality, Health and Well-Being

Religions, Jan 11, 2011

At our core, or coeur, we humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality can be viewed in a variety of... more At our core, or coeur, we humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality can be viewed in a variety of ways from a traditional understanding of spirituality as an expression of religiosity, in search of the sacred, through to a humanistic view of spirituality devoid of religion. Health is also multi-faceted, with increasing evidence reporting the relationship of spirituality with physical, mental, emotional, social and vocational well-being. This paper presents spiritual health as a, if not THE, fundamental dimension of people’s overall health and well-being, permeating and integrating all the other dimensions of health. Spiritual health is a dynamic state of being, reflected in the quality of relationships that people have in up to four domains of spiritual well-being: Personal domain where a person intra-relates with self; Communal domain, with in-depth inter-personal relationships; Environmental domain, connecting with nature; Transcendental domain, relating to some-thing or some‑One ...

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Locating spiritual wellbeing : a study among secondary school students in the empirical science of religious education

This study, located within the individual differences approach to the empirical science of religi... more This study, located within the individual differences approach to the empirical science of religious education, assesses and clarifies the construct of spiritual wellbeing operationalised by Fisher’s Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM). Data provided by 1,002 secondary school students in Australia, who completed SHALOM alongside a measure of Eysenck’s dimensional model of personality, found that higher levels of spiritual wellbeing were associated with high extraversion and low psychoticism. These findings suggest that spiritual wellbeing is located in psychological space which differentiates it both from established measures of religiosity and from established measures of subjective wellbeing. These data clarify the distinctive contribution made by SHALOM to the empirical science of religious education.

You Can’t Beat Relating with God for Spiritual Well-Being: Comparing a Generic Version with the Original Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire Called SHALOM

Religions, Jul 2, 2013

The Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) is a 20-item instrument that assesses ... more The Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) is a 20-item instrument that assesses the quality of relationships of the respondent with self, others, the environment and/or a Transcendent Other. In the Transcendental domain, four of the five items had the words ‘God, ‘Divine’ and ‘Creator’ replaced by the word ‘Transcendent’ to make the survey more generic by removing any implied reference to any god or religion. Invitations to complete a web survey were sent to people who had published papers in spirituality, or belonged to associations for spirituality or religious studies, as well as the Australian Atheist Forum. 409 respondents from 14 geographic regions, completed the survey. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the modified, generic form of SHALOM showed acceptable model fit, comprising four clearly delineated domains of spiritual well-being. The paper analyses the results derived from using the modified, generic version and, in comparison with results of ap...

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Spiritual health: its nature and place in the school curriculum

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Reaching the heart : Assessing & nurturing spiritual well-being via education

Several quantitative measures of spiritual well-being were developed with primary and secondary s... more Several quantitative measures of spiritual well-being were developed with primary and secondary school students and teachers, and university education students, namely the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure, Feeling Good, Living Life, and the Quality Of Life Influences Survey. Spiritual dissonance was revealed by comparing respondents’ ‘ideals’ with ‘lived experiences’ in four domains of spiritual well-being. Teachers and university education students reported a decline in help being provided in schools to develop the relationships which foster school students’ spiritual well-being.%%%%Doctor of Education EdD

Presenting a 4-Item Spiritual Well-Being Index (4-ISWBI)

Religions, Sep 4, 2017

Spiritual well-being is perceived to be reflected in the quality of relationships that people hav... more Spiritual well-being is perceived to be reflected in the quality of relationships that people have in four areas, namely with God, others, nature, and self. Many spiritual well-being questionnaires exist, but not many provide an adequate assessment of these four relationships. As part of a survey of parental perceptions of holistic early childhood education in kindergartens in Hong Kong, 1383 parents and 165 teachers, from 22 kindergartens, completed a written survey questionnaire which helped to investigate the potential for a single question with four parts to provide a valid and reliable measure for spiritual well-being. Face, content, and construct validity were confirmed, together with Cronbach’s alpha providing a test for reliability. Similarity of findings from regression analysis of items in the 4-ISWBI with domains of spiritual well-being in the 20-item SHALOM, as well as partial discrimination by gender, reinforce the validity of the 4-ISWBI as a sound indicator of spiritu...

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Spiritual Well-Being and Related Factors in Children With Cancer

Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nursing

Introduction: There are specific gaps that call for empirical research in the experiences of spir... more Introduction: There are specific gaps that call for empirical research in the experiences of spiritual well-being among children 12 years old and younger with cancer. Understanding these relationships can help to develop holistic and family centered care in pediatric oncology wards. This study assessed the spiritual well-being of children with cancer in association with their general well-being, happiness, quality of life, pain intensity, and personal characteristics. Method: The data were collected in Lithuania between June 2020 and November 2021. Children with cancer ( N = 81) who were hospitalized at pediatric oncology–hematology centers participated in the study. Inclusion criteria were age (from 5 to 12 years old), diagnosis of oncologic disease for the first time, and absence of other chronic diseases. The instruments used were: Feeling Good, Living Life; Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, Short Form; Well-Being Index; PedsQL™3.0 Cancer Module, and a Wong-Baker FACES® Pain Rating...

Validation of the Persian Version of Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaires

Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, 2018

Background: Spiritual well-being is an important issue in health sciences, hence the need for val... more Background: Spiritual well-being is an important issue in health sciences, hence the need for validated instruments to assess this aspect of health in the Iranian population. The aim of the current study was to determine the validity of the Persian versions of 2 most common measures of spiritual health (Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire [SWBQ] or Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure [SHALOM] and Spiritual Well-Being Scale [SWBS]). Methods: This was a cross-sectional study via a convenience sampling method in Iran University of Medical Sciences with 170 participants aged above 18 years comprising students, teachers, and administrative staff and managers. The study was conducted from September 7, 2014 to September 20, 2015 in Tehran. Four questionnaires, namely the SWBQ, SWBS, General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), were used. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 18 and LISREL (version 8.2). Cronbach’s alpha, intra-class correlati...

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The Importance of Relating with God for Spiritual Well-Being

Spirituality: New Reflections on Theory, Praxis and Pedagogy, 2013

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Spiritual Wellbeing of Cancer Patients: What Health-Related Factors Matter?

Journal of Religion and Health, 2020

This study aimed to determine the predictors of spiritual wellbeing of non-terminal stage cancer ... more This study aimed to determine the predictors of spiritual wellbeing of non-terminal stage cancer patients hospitalized in oncology units in Lithuania. An exploratory cross-sectional study design was employed. During structured face-to-face interviews, 226 cancer patients hospitalized in oncology units responded about their spiritual wellbeing, perception of happiness, satisfaction with life, pain intensity, levels of education and physical functioning, and length of inpatient stay. A set of standardized tools were used: spiritual wellbeing scale SHALOM, brief multidimensional life satisfaction scale, Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, Barthel Index questionnaire, and verbal pain intensity scale. Additionally, social- and health-related factors were included in data analyses. Structural equation modeling was adapted for a comprehensive assessment of the mediating effect of spiritual wellbeing on the relationship between different health- and value-related factors. The overall fit of the structural model was generally good: $$\chi_{(29)}^{2}$$ χ ( 29 ) 2 = 66.94 ( χ 2 /d f = 2.31), CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.08, and SRMR = 0.06. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics) version 24.0 and Mplus version 8.2. Level of happiness, life satisfaction, and spiritual wellbeing scored in the moderate upper range. The communal domain of spiritual wellbeing rated with the highest mean score and transcendental domain with the lowest score. Education ( b = 0.208, p = 0.004), physical functioning ( b = 0.171, p = 0.025), and hospital duration ( b = − 0.240, p = 0.001) were significant predictors of spiritual wellbeing. Happiness and life satisfaction were negatively influenced by pain intensity, which ranged from mild to moderate. Levels of education, physical functioning, and length of hospital stay predict spiritual wellbeing of non-terminally ill cancer patients. Happiness, as well as life satisfaction, was negatively predicted by pain intensity but had no direct influence on spiritual wellbeing of cancer patients. Spiritual wellbeing positively influences emotional wellbeing (happiness and life satisfaction), and its influence is stronger than the negative influence of physical pain has on emotional wellbeing.

Translation and Validation of Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire SHALOM in Lithuanian Language, Culture and Health Care Practice

Religions, 2018

Awareness of patients' and healthy people's spiritual well-being allows for care professionals to... more Awareness of patients' and healthy people's spiritual well-being allows for care professionals to support individual spiritual concerns in a timely and appropriate manner, performing a whole-person approach to care. To date, there have been no validated measures of spiritual well-being for use with healthy or illness-affected Lithuanian people. This paper reports the translation and validation procedures of the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire, SHALOM, for its use with Lithuanian people regarding the self-assessment of spiritual health. A convenience sample of 171 hospitalized non-terminally ill oncology patients was interviewed face-to-face during a field-test of a Lithuanian version of SHALOM. Overall scale reliability of the SHALOM-Ideals section was 0.909, with overall scale reliability of the SHALOM-Lived Experience section being 0.888. Culturally relevant translation resulted in very good stability over time with a seven-day break between repeat application (Ideals section: Spearman-Brown coefficient was 0.927; Lived Experience section: Spearman-Brown coefficient was 0.942). The construct validity of the scale was determined using exploratory factor analysis. The research perspective on spirituality and spiritual well-being in Lithuania indicates the desirability for larger scale quantitative and qualitative studies with different populations applying cross-sectional and cross-cultural comparisons.

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The Four Domains Model: Connecting Spirituality, Health and Well-Being

Religions, 2011

At our core, or coeur, we humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality can be viewed in a variety of... more At our core, or coeur, we humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality can be viewed in a variety of ways from a traditional understanding of spirituality as an expression of religiosity, in search of the sacred, through to a humanistic view of spirituality devoid of religion. Health is also multi-faceted, with increasing evidence reporting the relationship of spirituality with physical, mental, emotional, social and vocational well-being. This paper presents spiritual health as a, if not THE, fundamental dimension of people"s overall health and well-being, permeating and integrating all the other dimensions of health. Spiritual health is a dynamic state of being, reflected in the quality of relationships that people have in up to four domains of spiritual well-being: Personal domain where a person intra-relates with self; Communal domain, with in-depth inter-personal relationships; Environmental domain, connecting with nature; Transcendental domain, relating to some-thing or some-One beyond the human level. The Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health and Well-Being embraces all extant world-views from the ardently religious to the atheistic rationalist.

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Nurses' and carers' spiritual wellbeing in the workplace

The aim of the study was to investigate nurses' and pastoral carers' spiritual wellbeing (SWB) an... more

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Assessing adolescent spiritual health and well-being (commentary related to Social Science & Medicine – Population Health, ref: SSMPH-D-15-00089)

SSM - Population Health, 2016

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