Construction and Validation of the Scale of Attitudes and Knowledge of Health Professionals toward to the Sexual Assault in Adult Women (AKSSAW)

摘要

The main purpose of this research is to create and validate a Scale of Attitudes and Knowledge of Health Professionals toward Sexual Assault in Adult Women (AKSSAW). According to Walker (1994), throughout history there is evidence that women, disregarding culture of origin and social status, have faced sexual assault. It is expected that health professionals act as agents of help to victims and offer support and understanding to them in such a sensitive moment. Unfortunately, in many cases, the health professionals working with people who have been sexually assaulted do not show sensibility or the adequate management required in these cases. By finding the more common stigmas and myths present among health professionals toward sexual assault victims, it is possible to determine the areas in need of strengthening and implement necessary workshops on the topic of sexual assault. With a Cronbach’s alpha of .90, standard errors of measurement for the scale of attitudes of 0.50 and for scale of knowledge .29, and discriminatory power of .79 for the scale of attitudes and .78 for the scale of knowledge the final AKSSAW version, which consists of 29 items (18 items that measure attitudes and 11 items that measure knowledge), is shown to be a reliable and valid instrument to measure the attitude and knowledge of health professionals toward sexual assault in adult women.