Severity Benchmarks for the Pennsylvania Inventory of Scrupulosity: Brief Screening Measure for Pastoral Care and Counseling

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to determine whether the Pennsylvania Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS) can effectively distinguish between individuals with clinically significant religious scrupulosity and those experiencing non-pathological religious concerns. To establish severity benchmarks for the PIOS, we utilized empirically derived cutoff points from the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) alongside self-reported lifetime diagnosis of OCD. The study involved 732 Polish adults, the majority of whom identified as Roman Catholic. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses revealed that a PIOS total score of 26 or higher indicates an elevated risk of clinically relevant OCD symptomatology comorbid with religious scrupulosity.