Adaptation and Psychometric Testing of Multiple Measures of Religion Among African Americans Who Use Cocaine

Abstract

This study tests the psychometric properties and demographic variation of three culturally adapted versions of widely used religion scales—the Brief RCOPE, the Religious Support Scale, and items from the Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness and Spirituality—in a community sample of cocaine-using African Americans. The unadapted measures have been previously validated but not in an African American cocaine-using population, which is a gap in the literature because religious institutions are important venues for health promotion in many Southern and rural areas. All the scales diverged from normality but most demonstrated acceptable internal reliability and convergent validity. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factor structure of all scales except the Religious Support Scale. Correlations between religion scales and sample characteristics are provided and implications are discussed. Findings suggest that the factor structure and psychometric properties of the religion subscales are similar to other samples in this cohort of cocaine-using African Americans. These data provide initial support for the use of these instruments in future studies incorporating religious constructs with similar populations.