John W. Fisher

• MSc, MEd, PhD, EdD, PhD
• Honorary Associate Professor at Federation University

Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a community is only as strong as the weakest, or most vulnerable, member. Communities are comprised of varying numbers of members, with the best ones coming together in unity, by working cooperatively for the purpose, and with the outcome, of becoming one in head (thinking in tune with each oth...

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 canc...

Open Access: ttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01737-3 This first issue of JORH for 2023 considers (1) the ministry of chaplains, (2) Judaism, (3) the people of war-torn Ukraine, (4) the ongoing saga of COVID-19 and, on a happier note, (5) we celebrate a belated jubilee by presenting a bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Religion and Health (1...

Attention has been given to the experience of individuals undergoing assisted reproductive techniques. However, only recent literature has focused on the spiritual journey triggered by such an event and highlighted the nurses and midwives’ roles in the assessment of the spiritual needs of those living with infertility. This study aimed to perform a...

This paper reports significant findings from an exploratory investigation of factors influencing kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of holistic early childhood education (HECE) following the release of a recent policy document relating to Early Childhood Education by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A comprehensive four-page survey ques...

The Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWBQ) was developed from a theoretical understanding that spiritual well-being (SWB) is expressed in the quality of relationships that each person has across one or more of four domains, namely with self, others, environment and/or with a transcendent other. Based on the SWBQ, the Spiritual Health And Life-Or...

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, perc...

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. Thi...

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...

This study had the following aims: (i) to translate the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) into Brazilian Portuguese and adapt it to ensure the semantic/conceptual equivalence and content validity of the Brazilian version and (ii) to analyse the psychometric properties—reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity and...

This study employs a modified form of the Fisher 16-item Feeling Good, Living Life measure of spiritual well-being (assessing quality of relationships across four domains: self, family, nature and God) among a sample of 1,328 students drawn from year five and year six classes within Church in Wales primary schools, alongside measures of frequency o...

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...

At our very core, human beings are spirit; we have a soul, which comprises mind, will and emotions; and we live in a body. These aspects of humans interpenetrate each other. Neither spirit nor mind can be seen physically. However, various properties or behaviours can be attributed to these aspects of our beings. For example, spiritual well-being is...

This paper extends the reporting of contemporary use of the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), which provides flexibility to researchers, enabling them to choose the version of the instrument that best suits the cohort under investigation. SHALOM was built on a solid theoretical foundation, provided by the Four Domains Model of...

Over the last three decades, qualitative studies of children’s spirituality have variously mentioned God. During this time, nearly 300 quantitative measures of spirituality and well-being have been developed and employed with youth and adults. However, very little similar work has been done with children. An article in this journal reported develop...

This study explores the theoretical and empirical connections between spiritual well-being and psychological type by drawing on Fisher's model of spiritual well-being as assessed by the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure and Francis' classification of psychological type as generated by the Francis Psychological Type Scales. Data provided...

This chapter outlines potential interactions of God with humanity from the dawn of time through to attaining spiritual well-being. It briefly mentions alternative theories of origin, which connect to questions of ultimate reality, origin of human beings and our spiritual well-being. The nature of spirit and its relationship with soul and mind is t...

This chapter provides an analytical review of nearly 300 ways in which people have attempted quantitative assessments of spirituality or spiritual health/well-being (SH/WB) over the last 40 years. They range from single-item to multi-item measures. Each item in these measures has been classified using the theoretical framework provided by the auth...

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...

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 deve...

In order to examine the association between prayer and happiness, a sample of 1,002 students, ranging in age from 12- to 18-years, attending ten non-government secondary schools in Victoria, Australia, completed three measures: the Oxford Happiness Inventory, the short form of the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised, and a single-item...

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,...

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 th...

A previous study on university students reported that personal, communal, and environmental spiritual well-being contributed to happiness over and above personality but that relating with God did not. In this study, happiness was assessed using a modified Oxford Happiness Inventory. Personality scores were obtained using forms of Eysenck's Personal...

This study examined Eysenck's claim that happiness is located within the personality quadrant defined as stable extraversion among three samples in Australia (1,002 secondary school students, 466 university students, and 494 adult churchgoers) employing the Oxford Happiness Inventory. All three samples supported Eysenck's claim. The results are dis...

Background: Spiritual well-being of providers and patients is paramount for holistic care in nursing. Spiritual well-being is reflected in relationships in four areas, namely with self, others, environment and/or Transcendent Other. Method: Fisher’s 20-item Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) was used to assess these four key com...

Studies in resiliency often stand alongside those of health deficits, pointing to positive ways in which the well-being of young people can be addressed, (often) in and through education. The underlying theme of 'connectedness' or building relationships, which is gaining in importance in resiliency discussions, also undergirds research in spiritual...

This project investigated New Zealanders' views about palliative care and local hospice services. A representative population-based sample of 1011 New Zealanders completed an online survey. The age, gender, and geographic region of the 1011 participants were broadly representative of the New Zealand population. Varying awareness of hospice services...

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 experi...

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 relati...

Fisher’s spiritual well‐being (SWB) questionnaires assessed students’ levels of relationship in four domains, namely with themselves, others, the environment and with a Transcendent Other (commonly called God). Students also reported the extent to which different entities helped them develop relationships in the four domains of SWB. However, emphas...

The Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health and Well-Being was used as the theoretical base for the development of several spiritual well-being questionnaires, with progressive fine-tuning leading to the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM). SHALOM comprises 20 items with five items reflecting the quality of relationships of each p...

Abstract This chapter begins with a brief overview of ‘spiritual’ in Australian curriculum documents. Following classic and contemporary definitions of spirituality, general comments are gleaned from publications on spirituality in Australia, and education in particular. Curriculum concerns and views on spirituality related to values education and...

This paper provides a critique of available quantitative measures of spirituality and well‐being that have been used with children and youth. These measures range in scope from single‐item to complex multiple‐item instruments. The four domain model of spiritual health and well‐being has been used to classify each item in the spirituality measures t...

Education students in Australian state and Christian universities expressed their views on ideals, lived experience, and help expected from schools in four domains of spiritual well‐being (personal, communal, environmental, and transcendental) (SWB), using the Spiritual Health and Life‐Orientation Measure (SHALOM). Students’ lived experiences great...

Attempts at defining spirituality vacillate between the human and the divine. However, many studies show relationships between spirituality or religion and health. An extensive literature search and a study of almost 100 educators in four different types of schools led to a model in which spiritual health is understood to be a, if not the, fundamen...

Abstract of ‘Reaching the heart’, EdD thesis, by John W. Fisher 2009 Spirituality is posited as existing at the very core, or heart, of being human. The work reported here builds on a theoretical model of spiritual health, that I have been developing and testing over the last 15 years. This model proposes that spiritual wellbeing (SWB) is reflecte...

Spiritual well‐being (SWB) is reflected in the quality of relationships that people have with themselves, others, environment and/or God. This paper ties together several studies of SWB among teachers and students in primary and secondary, state, Catholic, other Christian, and independent schools in Victoria, Australia. Teachers' lived experiences...

Objective The aim of the study was to investigate nurses' and pastoral carers' spiritual wellbeing (SWB) and how it relates to their workplace. Design The study design was a survey of total populations in selected health care services. Setting The setting was a public and a private hospital in a regional setting, and three hospices in major cities...

Spiritual well-being is reflected in up to four sets of relationships that people have; namely with themselves, with others, with the environment, and/or with God. Details are provided about quantitative measures for spiritual well-being used with students and teachers in Victorian Christian primary and secondary schools. The results obtained are p...

This paper reports the views of 820 teachers from state, Catholic, Christian and other independent schools in Victoria. The purpose of the study was to investigate what factors relate to teachers' views on spiritual well-being (SWB) personally, as well as the perceived help gained by students from school in this aspect of life. Spiritual well-being...

Spiritual well‐being is reflected in the quality of relationships that each person has in up to four different domains, namely with self, with others, with the environment and/or with God. This study investigated how secondary students perceived relationships with family, friends, school and church community (including God) impacted on their spirit...

To improve access to clinical information for nurses and doctors providing after hours community palliative care in a regional Australian setting. This was an action research project designed to improve collation and distribution of succinct, pertinent and timely information about unstable palliative care patients to nurses and general practitioner...

Fisher (1998) proposed a spiritual well-being model, comprising primary factors for the domains of personal, communal, environmental and transcendental well-being, that cohere to form a single higher order or global spiritual well-being dimension. In line with this model, Gomez and Fisher (2003) published the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWB...

In order to explore the usefulness and acceptability of the provisions of the Medical Treatment Act 1988 (Vic) for palliative care patients in a rural region in Victoria, Australia, between July and December 2004 patients were given information explaining the Act and the opportunity to discuss it with the research officer. Grounded theory methodolo...

Recently, Gomez and Fisher (2003) published the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWBQ). This is a self-rating measure with separate 5-item scales for personal, communal, environmental, and transcendental spiritual well-being. This study used item response theory (IRT) to examine the psychometric properties of these scales. A sample comprising 44...

to assess the impact of a training programme on nurse confidence in: setting up the Graseby syringe driver (GSD); explaining the GSD to patient and family; setting the rate on the GSD; putting appropriate type and dose of drugs in the GSD. training programme with pre-training, post-training and follow-up questionnaires. palliative care nurse consul...

Following previous work on the spiritual health of secondary students, the author wondered if it was possible to develop a spiritual health measure for younger children. Taking Fisher's model of spiritual health as the basis, items were developed to reflect relationships with self, with others, with the environment and with a god. The children's id...

Fisher (1998) proposed a spiritual well-being model, comprising the domains of personal, communal, environmental and transcendental well-being, and a single global spiritual well-being dimension. This paper reports on four studies aimed at testing Fisher’s theoretical model, and establishing the validity and reliability of a new self-rating questio...

This study investigated the curative effects of notoginseny cream versus Hirudoid cream in the treatment of postinfusion phlebitis. Sixty-five patients who received peripheral infusion therapy during a 20-month period and had developed phlebitis were divided randomly into two groups. Group A was treated with notoginseny cream, a topical Chinese med...

Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1975–1991 Domains of spiritual well-being and development and validation of the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire Rapson Gomez a,*, John W.Fisher b aSchool of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Ballarat, PO Box 663, Ballarat, Victoria, 3350, Australia b School of Nursing,...

A sample of 311 primary school teachers completed the Spiritual Health in Four Domains Index alongside the abbreviated revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and measures of religiosity. The data demonstrate that higher levels of spiritual health are found among older teachers who record low scores on the psychoticism scale and who practice reli...

A random sample of 1,033 adults in an Australian community survey completed a form containing the abbreviated Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with questions about the practice of prayer and Eastern meditation. While prayer was associated with low psychoticism scores, Eastern meditation was associated with high psychoticism scores...

This article reports on a survey completed by Chaplains, Religious Education and Student Welfare Coordinators in State, Catholic and Independent schools in Victoria. Results from this survey support the model of spiritual well-being, which was seen to be reflected in the quality of relationships that people develop with themselves, others, the envi...

This study argues for the assessment of spiritual health in terms of four domains of wellbeing concerned with self, community, environment, and God. This view of spiritual health is supported by data from 311 teachers in the UK. The Spiritual Health in Four Domains Index (SH4DI) developed from these data both provides an overall index of spiritual...

Interviews with 98 teachers from a variety of schools were used to develop a definition of spiritual health, and to establish how these teachers thought spiritual health might best be fostered and what hindered its development in the school curriculum. A recurring theme, which seemed to be coming through the comments from teachers in this study, wa...

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