Does God determine your health? The God Locus of Health Control scale

Although perceptions of internal control have been related to physical and psychosocial outcomes in chronic illness, less attention has been pain to p erceptions of external sources of control and their implications for adapta tion. One reason for this has been the dearth of adequate measures for asse ssing specific external control constructs. The God Locus of Health Control (GLHC) scale was developed to assess the extent of an individual's belief that God controls his or her health status. The GLHC was designed as an adj unct to the widely used Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) sca les. Initial studies of the psychometric properties of the CLHC scale in sa mples of persons with two rheumatic diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and syst emic sclerosis, provide evidence of the scale's reliability and validity.