Objective: This study was designed to describe and compare five helping professions' views and behaviors regarding the integration of clients' religion/spirituality (RS) in clinical practice.
Method: A cross-sectional design was used to survey 3,500 licensed clinical psychologists, nurses, marriage and family therapists (LMFTs), clinical social workers, and professional counselors across Texas. A total of 550 responded to this online survey, which included the Religious/Spiritually Integrated Practice Assessment Scale and background questions.
Results: Attitudes concerning the integration of clients' RS did not differ by profession and were fairly positive. However, differences emerged regarding self-efficacy, perceived feasibility, and behaviors, with LMFTs reporting the highest scores for these subscales.
Conclusion: This is the first comparison of these five professions' attitudes, behaviors, perceived feasibility, and self-efficacy regarding integrating clients' RS. These encouraging results not only indicate helping professionals' openness to integrating clients' RS, but also highlight key differences in training, self-efficacy, views of feasibility, and implementation.
Keywords: attitudes; behaviors; clinical practice; counselors; marriage and family therapists; nurses; psychologists; religion; social workers; spirituality.
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