Sensitivity and Specificity of a Short Scale for Assessing Psychological Violence in Peruvian Health Professionals

Abstract

Objective: Psychological violence at work is becoming more acute in the health sector due to the precariousness of psychosocial work conditions at a global scale. To date, there have been no psychometric studies to classify this situation. The objective of the study was to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the psychological violence scale in health professionals (PVS-Health) among the Peruvian population.Results: The study included 188 professionals from ten care centres in Peru. Two groups of 94 subjects were formed: subjects who had experienced psychological violence at work (PVW) and subjects who had not experienced. The average age was 36.8 ± 10.5 years; 59% of the sample were women. The subjects’ work experience ranged between 1 to 35 years. The analysis based on the receiver operating characteristic ( ROC ) curve concludes significantly: a) area under the curve, AUC x 0.974; standard error, SE x 0.10; p < 0.0003 (95% CI – 0.954 – 0.994), showing adequate randomness; b) cut-off point for maximum sensitivity (S x 0.94) and specificity (E x 0.89) was 35 out of 73 as the maximum score; and c) PVS-Health effectively distinguish subjects with PVW from those without PVW (89% with PVW, 94% of those without).