Further Validation of the Religious Surrender and Attendance Scale-3 (RSAS-3)

The Religious Surrender and Attendance Scale -3 (RSAS-3) is a very brief measure used to quantify religious commitment as a protective health factor. To provide evidence of criterion-related validity of the RSAS-3, 440 community members and undergraduate students completed a survey containing three religiosity measures: the RSAS-3, the Intrinsic/Extrinsic Orientation scale, and the Belief into Action scale (BIAC), and a measure of problematic substance use, Texas Christian University Drug Screen-5. It was hypothesized all religiosity measures would be positively interrelated, the measure of problematic use would be negatively related to all religiosity measures, and that the RSAS-3 would be strongly predictive of absence of problematic substance use. After data filtering and imputation, bivariate correlations were calculated to establish convergent validity. All relationships were in the predicted directions. Specifically, BIAC had the strongest relationship with the RSAS-3, r (440) = .906, p < .001, followed by intrinsic religiosity, r (440) =.814, p < .001, and extrinsic religiosity, r (440) = .694, p < .001. The RSAS-3 was the strongest predictor of problematic use among the religiosity measures, r (440) = -0.230, p <.001. Criterion-related validity of the RSAS-3 was supported using logistic regression to explore intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic religiosity, BIAC, and RSAS-3 as predictors of the presence/absence of problematic substance use. The RSAS-3 was the only significant predictor (OR = .858 [95% CI .757 - .973], p = .017). All results provide further evidence for the validity of the RSAS-3 as a very brief measure of religious commitment useful in health settings.