Scale for the study of nursing students' perception of intimate partner violence: Adaptation and validation.

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of the most important challenges facing today's society. Health professionals, and nurses in particular, play a leading role in addressing this problem. Having an instrument to study Nursing students' perception of this type of violence may enable appropriate and necessary educational strategies for their pre-service training and help them identify and address IPV in their future careers.

OBJECTIVES: To adapt and validate the IPV scale of Beccaria et al. (2011) in order to study nursing students' perception of IPV.

METHOD: The original instrument (63 items) underwent back-translation. Statistical and metrical analysis in a sample of 1064 students of the four-year Nursing degree program at four public universities in Catalonia (Spain) were based on their responses to the Spanish version.

RESULTS: The results of the exploratory factorial analysis and subsequent confirmatory analysis showed that the data had an adequate fit for a four-factor model. The reliability analysis showed adequate internal consistency for each subscale in the instrument: Education (0.83); Identification of the Victim (0.72); Nursing Role and Values (0.78), and Identification of the Perpetrator (0.66).

CONCLUSION: The translation, cultural adaptation and validation process of the original IPV scale resulted in a Spanish-language instrument (IPV scale Spanish version) with 32 items in four subscales. We concluded that the Spanish version of the instrument is reliable and valid, and that its implementation would enable the assessment of nursing students' perception of IPV situations.