Validation of the chilean version of the “workplace violence in the health sector” questionnaire in the prehospital care setting

Abstract

Introduction: Workplace violence is becoming increasingly frequent in the health sector. Therefore, valid and reliable instruments are required to measure this phenomenon. Objective: To validate the factor structure of the Spanish version of the “Workplace Violence in the Health Sector” questionnaire in Chilean prehospital care workers. Material and methods: Quantitative, multivariate study in which the main components of the Spanish version of the questionnaire were analyzed. After being reviewed by experts and conducting a pilot test, 6 questions were eliminated. The adapted version was admin-istered to 74 health professionals (nurses-kinesiologists) and 148 paramedics working in prehospital care. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi-square test). The SPSS v15 software was used to perform data analysis and the prin-cipal component analysis (PCA). Results: The questionnaire had a high overall reliability (α=0.912). According to the PCA, three factors were identified, namely, physical violence (eigenvalue: 8.3), verbal abuse (ei-genvalue: 3.7) and mobbing or workplace harassment (eigenvalue: 3.6), which explain 86% of the variance. Conclusions: The proposed instrument is valid for measuring workplace violence among health professionals working in prehospital care. Having a validated tool to quantify this phenomenon in the country is a significant contribution since it allows carrying out similar studies in other health areas and, based on the results, work on its prevention and the pro-motion of healthier work environments.