Development of the PASEO Assessment of Spanish Proficiency for Mental Health (PASP-MH): A Tool for Assessing Competence to Provide Mental Health Services in Spanish

Kohrt B.K.; Martínez D.A.; Provencio A.; Salinas L.C. · Journal of Latinx Psychology (2025) · DOI: 10.1037/lat0000272

Resumen

There are an estimated 41 million native Spanish speakers in the United States. The need for mental health clinicians with proficiency in Spanish is crucial to the provision of ethical and effective care. Yet, no formal mechanisms have been published in the literature to assess someone’s level of clinical Spanish. This article describes the development and initial psychometric properties of the PASEO Assessment of Spanish Proficiency–Mental Health, a tool designed to assist individuals, training programs, and clinical sites in determining proficiency to provide mental health services in Spanish. We undertook a four-part process to develop the PASEO Assessment of Spanish Proficiency–Mental Health: (a) determine core proficiency areas for providing clinical services in Spanish, (b) develop a behaviorally anchored rubric integrating gold-standard definitions of Spanish oral proficiency and general therapeutic competence, (c) create evaluation materials, including case-study derived role-play vignettes and a standardized procedure for gathering a valid speech sample, and (d) pilot the tool for feasibility and initial psychometric properties. The resulting tool elicits proficiency in Spanish specific to mental health in six core areas and has strong initial reliability and validity. Interrater reliability scores fell within the good to excellent range. The measure demonstrates strong convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity and provides accurate classifications of competency to provide mental health services in Spanish, while also showing sensitivity to change following a Spanish for mental health immersion program. This tool is a promising step for increasing the quality of services provided to Spanish-speaking clients in the United States. It should be integrated into clinical settings and training programs to ensure ethical mental health care and can be used by individuals to support their training, advocacy, and advancement.