Development of the National Institute of Health Healing Experience of All Life Stressors Short Form (NIH-HEALS-SF)

TL;DR

Researchers developed a shorter version of a well-being assessment tool to make it more practical for use in large studies and clinical settings.

Contribution

A nine-item short-form version of the NIH-HEALS was developed and validated for efficient psychosocial-spiritual well-being assessment.

Findings

The NIH-HEALS-SF showed strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.75–0.85).

It correlated highly with the original NIH-HEALS (rp = 0.92–0.96).

The short-form maintains conceptual integrity while reducing administration time.

Abstract

The National Institutes of Health Healing Experience of All Life Stressors (NIH-HEALS) is a validated measure of psychosocial-spiritual well-being with strong psychometric properties, supporting its use in both research and clinical settings. To enhance its applicability in large-scale studies and routine clinical practice while minimizing patient burden, a short-form version, the NIH-HEALS-SF, was developed. Using data from 200 participants, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression was applied to identify the most predictive and relevant items from the original scale. Each item was assessed within three core domains: Connection, Reflection and Introspection, and Trust and Acceptance. The final nine-item version was validated in an independent sample of 164 individuals from three distinct cohorts. Psychometric evaluation demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.75–0.85) and high correlation with the original full-scale NIH-HEALS (rp = 0.92–0.96). These findings suggest that the NIH-HEALS-SF maintains the conceptual integrity and measurement properties of the original instrument while reducing administration time. By offering a concise yet robust assessment of psychosocial-spiritual well-being, the NIH-HEALS-SF may facilitate broader implementation in both clinical and research contexts, particularly in settings where time-efficient assessments are needed.

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