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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Mar 22.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Psychol Relig. 2009 Jul 1;19(3):155–172. doi: 10.1080/10508610902880204

Table 1.

Core Study Measures

  1. Depressed Affect - Wave 5 and Wave 6a

    1. A. I felt like I could not shake off the blues, even with the help of my family and friends.

    2. I felt depressed.

    3. I felt sad.

    4. I had crying spells.

  2. Gratitude - Wave 5 and Wave 6b

    1. I have much to be thankful for.

    2. If I had to list everything that I feel grateful for, it would be a very long list.

    3. I stop and count my blessings nearly every day.

  3. Chronic Financial Strain - Wave 5

    1. How much difficulty do you have meeting the monthly payments on our bills?c

    2. In general, how would you say your finances usually work out at the end of the month?d

    3. How would you rate your financial situation these days?e

  4. Frequency of Church Attendancef

    • How often do you attend religious services?

  5. Frequency of Private Prayerg

    • How often do you pray by yourself?

  6. God-Mediated Controlb

    1. I rely on God to help me control my life.

    2. I can succeed with God's help.

a

These items were scored in the following manner (coding in parenthesis): rarely or none of the time (1); some or a little of the time (2); occasionally or a moderate amount of the time (3); most or all of the time (4).

b

These items were scored in the following manner: disagree strongly (1); disagree (2); agree (3); agree strongly (4).

c

This item was scored in the following manner: none (1); only a little (2); some (3); a great deal (4).

d

This item was scored in the following manner: money left over (1); just enough (2); not enough to make ends meet (3).

e

This item was scored by asking study participants to rank their financial situation on a scale from 0 to 10, where a score of 0 means the best possible financial situation and a score of 10 means the worst possible financial situation.

f

This item was scored in the following manner: never (1); less than once a year (2); about once or twice a year (3); several times a year (4); about once a month (5); 2-3 times a month (6); nearly every week (7); every week (8); several times a week (9).

g

This item was scored in the following manner: never (1); less than once a month (2); once a month (3); a few times a month (4); once a week (5); a few times a week (6); once a day (7); several times a day (8).