Objective:

To create and validate a scale that would allow us to investigate women's experiences in order to detect violent practices in said healthcare field.

Method:

The scale was applied to 503 women of different ages in the city of Valparaiso, Chile. The final instrument, composed of thirteen items, shows good reliability (α = .87) and a similar factorial structure to that which was predicted (three correlated factors referring to diverse forms of psychological, physical and sexual violence).

Results:

The correlations between the dimensions of the scale vary in range from .49 to .54. A confirmatory factor analysis indicates factor loadings from .47 to .77, revealing good fit indexes (CFI = .94 y RSMEA = .06) which denotes the validity of the model. A multi-group factor analysis supports the scale's metric invariance between groups with differences in range of age (18-38 and >39) and health care centers where the treatment is received (public and private). Likewise, the completed tests show the metric invariance of the created scale. Finally, the prevalence rates of the different forms of violence predicted by the scale are reported.

Conclusions:

The gynecological violence scale is a good instrument (reliable and validity) for detect women's experiences of psychological, physical and sexual abuse.