Development and Validation of the Religious Schema Questionnaire for Culturally Distorted Beliefs (ReSQue-CD)

Shaban, Taregh, Grey, Ian, Steel, Craig, Bower, Jo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3485-391X and Cody, Brettjet (2026) Development and Validation of the Religious Schema Questionnaire for Culturally Distorted Beliefs (ReSQue-CD). Mental Health, Religion & Culture. (In Press)

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Abstract

A maladaptive religious schema can be conceptualised as a stable, negatively biased cognitive emotional framework concerning God, the self, and religious practice that organises experience in a way that generates distress and dysfunctional patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaviour. To address the lack of measures assessing maladaptive religious schemata in Muslim populations, the current study adopts a schema-based approach and reports the development of the Religious Schema Questionnaire for Culturally Distorted Beliefs (ReSQue-CD). Childhood and adulthood versions of an 18-item questionnaire were developed and validated across three phases. Phase one involved qualitative item generation through semi-structured interviews with 16 Muslim participants (M age = 24, SD = 5.37; 9 females) from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) backgrounds. Phase two involved exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with 174 young Muslim adults (82% female; M age = 20.0, SD = 1.95; 93.7% GCC nationals), which demonstrated sampling adequacy (KMO = .79 for C-ReSQue-CD and .81 for A-ReSQue-CD) and a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < .001), yielding a six-factor solution accounting for 74.5–75.0% of the variance. Phase three involved confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with 250 young Muslim adults (78.4% female; M age = 20.6, SD = 2.20; 90.8% GCC nationals), which supported the six-factor structure with good model fit (C-ReSQue-CD: χ²/df = 1.62, RMSEA = .05, CFI = .97, TLI = .95, SRMR = .05; A-ReSQue-CD: χ²/df = 1.73, RMSEA = .05, CFI = .97, TLI = .96, SRMR = .05). Both versions demonstrated good internal consistency (α = .85–.86) and evidence of convergent and divergent validity. The ReSQue-CD provides a culturally sensitive and psychometrically sound measure for identifying maladaptive religious cognitions associated with psychological distress in conservative Muslim populations.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Due to the sensitivity of the data and ethical constraints, public sharing is not permitted.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Mental Health and Social Care (fka Lifespan Health)
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2026 15:21
Last Modified:	07 Aug 2026 15:21
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/104052
DOI:	10.1080/13674676.2026.2712537

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