Spirituality and Health: Can Contaminated Measures Still Provide Useful Insights?

Recently, scientists have raised concerns about using spirituality measures that are mixed with mental and social health indicators. Many researchers might not know about this issue, even though these scales are commonly used in health studies. Previously, experts warned about choosing the right religious and spiritual (R/S) measures to avoid getting the same results as what you're testing (like finding that spirituality improves mental health just because both are measured together). But there's hope! Even contaminated data can give meaningful insights. One way is to remove the mixed-up items from the scale. Another is to look at subscales separately. You can also use models that show how psychosocial factors might influence the path from R/S to health. Tools like path analysis or structural equation modeling can help find direct and indirect effects.