TITLE:
Belief into Action Scale: A Brief but Comprehensive Measure of Religious Commitment
AUTHORS:
Harold G. Koenig, Bruce Nelson, Sally F. Shaw, Faten Al Zaben, Zhizhong Wang, Salil Saxena
KEYWORDS:
Religion, Monotheism, Measurement, Psychometrics, Belief, Spirituality
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol.5 No.1,
January
22,
2015
ABSTRACT: Objective: Our goal was to develop a
comprehensive measure of religious involvement for those affiliated with
monotheistic religious traditions that fully captures the centrality of
religion in life. Methods: A convenience sample of female caregivers of those
with chronic disabling illness, recruited from North Carolina and California,
completed a questionnaire including a new 10-item scale called the Belief into
Action (BIAC) scale (possible score range: 10 - 100). Psychometric properties
of the BIAC were examined. Results: 231 participants completed the BIAC (87%
Christian). The average score was 46.3 (range: 10 - 90). Cronbach alpha was
0.89 (95% CI 0.86 - 0.91) and the intra-class correlation coefficient between
two administrations (n = 60) was 0.919 (95% CI 0.869 - 0.951). Convergent
validity was demonstrated by high correlations between the BIAC and existing
religiosity scales; divergent validity by weak correlations with mental,
social, and physical health outcomes; construct validity by high correlations
between individual items and total scale score (r’s 0.58 - 0.80); factor
analytic validity by a single factor that explained 94.4% of the scale’s
variance; and predictive validity by small to moderate correlations with
psychosocial outcomes in expected directions. Conclusion: The BIAC is a
reliable and valid scale for comprehensively assessing religious involvement in
female caregivers affiliated with monotheistic religions, Christianity in
particular. Psychometric properties of the scale need to be established in
other populations.