Psychometric validation of the Peruvian version of a short scale to assess psychological violence in health professionals: A cross-sectional study

Objective: This study aimed to adapt a Peruvian version of the brief scale to assess psychological violence in health professionals (EVP-salud), exploring its validity and reliability properties. Methods: We made a cross-sectional study of psychometric evaluation conducted between January 2019 and February 2020. It involved the voluntary and anonymous participation of 316 health professionals and administrative workers from 17 health centers in Peru, who were administered the 22-item psychological violence scale. In addition, three other instruments were used to assess convergent and discriminative validity. Results: In contrast to other findings using similar instruments, the item composition of the abbreviated psychological violence scale converges on three components that assess isolation, intimidation, and belittling violence. This validation provides evidence of good fit in criterion and construct, explaining 66.7% of the accumulated variance and up to 54.3% when the final version is reduced to 13 items and three factors. The data reflect a high inverse association between psychological violence and intrinsic job satisfaction. Conclusions: The empirical results indicate psychometric properties of the instrument, with strong support in the validity and appropriate reliability according to the internal consistency indexes.