RESUMO
Medical and psychological health care professionals are becoming increasingly aware that effective treatment in culturally diverse societies requires sensitivity to the patient's cultural beliefs and customs (Davidhizar et Giger; 2001:2; Foley et Wurmser; 2004:2; Hickson et Christie; 1989:162; Mkize; 2003:4; Narayanasamy; 2003:1). To this end this article introduces the South African Traditional Belief Scale (SATBS) as an instrument to enable culture-congruent care; not only in the medical field; but also in psychotherapy and counselling. This scale measures the extent to which black South Africans adhere to traditional beliefs and customs. To obtain reliability and validity data; 64 second-year students were randomly selected at the East Rand campus of Vista University. The reliability of the SATBS was established by calculating inter-item correlations. A reliability coefficient; or index of internal consistency of 0.91 (Cronbach alpha) was obtained after the first iteration. In order to establish criterion validity; the South African Traditional Belief Scale was validated against the Degree of Enculturation Survey (DES) by using the same random sample. A validity coefficient of 0.7899 was obtained which indicates a high index of criterion validity. The questionnaire therefore measures what it purports to assess