The study of the impact on spirituality and all of its subcomponents on health and well being throughout the life cycle, the aging process, and into the final stages of life is a newly emerging, rapidly growing field. Over the past decade, studies on the relationship between health and spirituality have doubled; US medical school curricula on the topic have increased more that tenfold; and media and public interest has reached new highs. However, at present, there is no single comprehensive source of information on health and spirituality. The proposed product is a web-based, relational database innovatively designed to overcome the limitations of current information systems which include: 1) inconsistent or absent indexing on spirituality terminology; 2) inadequate/incomplete abstracts 3) lack of electronic database indexing for many relevant journals; 4) lack of including the most timely information such as conference abstracts and planned/in progress studies. This Phase I application proposes to develop a prototype relational database on health and spirituality pertaining to the life cycle, aging, including end-of-life issues and caregivers' spiritual needs. In Phase I, a thesaurus of indexing terms pertinent to spirituality/religion will be developed, a select set of research citations will be identified, fully abstracted using a structured abstracts format, and indexed by experienced personnel. The database will be partnered with a threaded discussion forum explicitly designed to facilitate discourse about research issues in health and spirituality. Phase I further proposes to conduct prototype (beta) testing on six groups of potential end users (clinicians, educators, researchers, medical librarians, the media, and the lay public) to assess (1) the database functionality and accessibility of the graphic user interface, (2) the educational value of the database content, and (3) the overall attractiveness and clarity of the design. Phase II will focus on comprehensively populating the database with a significantly larger and more comprehensive set of research citations and related materials and migrating to a fully functional website, SpiritLit.com.
