Development of the Brief Spirituality/Religiosity Functional Competency Scale.

Abstract

Spiritual and religious competence in psychotherapy is increasingly recognized as essential for supporting patients facing religious and spiritual struggles, though there is a lack of reliable objective measures to evaluate clinician competence in this area. This study aimed to develop and provide preliminary validation for the Brief Spirituality/Religiosity Functional Competency Scale, an observational tool designed to assess functional spiritual/religious competencies, and to examine the relationship between these competencies and therapeutic alliance. Participants were 105 doctoral trainees enrolled in clinical or counseling psychology programs across the United States. Using data from objective-structured clinical examinations, we assessed the scale's internal consistency, interrater reliability, convergent and discriminant validity. The observational design evaluated participants' functional competencies during brief simulated clinical encounters. The scale demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. While the overall competency score did not significantly predict therapeutic alliance or cultural humility, individual item analysis revealed that the "Help Explore Strengths" spiritual/religious competency and general advocacy skills significantly predicted stronger therapeutic alliance (R² = .10). Only advocacy skills significantly predicted cultural humility (R² = .10). Religious commitment was modestly correlated with both self- and expert-rated spiritual/religious competence but was not associated with simulated patient-rated therapeutic alliance or cultural humility. These results underscore the importance of assessing discrete demonstrated spiritual/religious competencies-rather than relying on global ratings or self-perceived religious commitment-to understand their unique contributions to therapeutic alliance. The scale shows promise for use in formative and summative assessments of clinician competence in spiritual and religious domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).