Development and initial validation of a measure of cross-lingual practice among mental health practitioners

Abstract

Objective

Despite the importance of spoken language in psychotherapy processes with clients whose native language is distinct from the language of therapy, there is a dearth of research on mental health practitioners (MHPs) language competence. This research aimed to develop the Perceptions of Cross-lingual Practice (PCLP) scale designed to aid MHPs’ cross-lingual practice.

Method

Study 1 developed items and collected data from Australian MHPs (n = 155) to test the scale’s factor structure through exploratory factor analysis. Study 2 (n = 257) confirmed the emergent factor structure of the scale through confirmatory factor analysis and further assessed its reliability and convergent validity.

Results

The final 23-item measure had good reliability and validity. Three factors emerged; MHPs’ perceptions of self-competence, MHPs’ perceptions of difficulties faced by clients, and MHPs’ perceptions of barriers for themselves imposed by language. The perceptions of self-competence subscale was weakly related to the other subscales highlighting a disconnect between MHPs’ self-perceptions and perceptions of contextual factors.

Conclusion

The PCLP is a reliable and valid measure of MHPs’ perceptions of cross-lingual practice composed of three subscales each with good psychometric properties that can be used for various purposes in the evaluation and development of MHPs in post-graduate and professional settings.

Keywords:

• Cross-lingual competence
• cultural competence
• mental health practitioners
• measure development

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical Approval

Ethical Approval was granted by the Griffith University HREC (PSY/02/15/HREC and GUHREC/2018/711)

Informed Consent from Participants

All participants provided informed consent prior to participating.

Consent to Publish Statement

All participants were informed that the research would be published and consented to this via the informed consent process.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The acronym CALD was used throughout the survey to refer to Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people.