Gender awareness is also nurses' business: Measuring sensitivity and role ideology towards patients

Abstract

Aim:This study aims to validate the Nijmegen Gender Awareness in Medicine Scale,which assesses gender sensitivity and gender-role ideology towards patients in theSpanish language for use among physicians and nurses.Background:Women are more likely to suffer pain, delays and health consequencesrelated to low therapeutic effort. Health professionals’gender awareness may mini-mize such bias; however, the only instrument to assess such awareness is limited tophysicians and lacks a Spanish version.Methods:After using the back-translation method, a sample of 167 Spanish nursesand nursing students completed the instrument. In order to obtain additional validityevidence, 98 health professionals filled in gender sensitivity and gender-role ideologytowards patients’subscales and the short versions of the Ambivalent SexismInventory.Results:Gender-role ideology towards patients correlated strongly with sexist atti-tudes, demonstrating convergent validity, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients showedan adequate internal consistency.Conclusions:Nijmegen Gender Awareness in Medicine Scale perfectly applies tonurse population, and this adaptation also broadens its use for Spanish professionals.Implications for Nursing Management:Nurse managers and educators can use thisapplicable tool to treat low gender awareness levels as a modifiable risk factor andpromote a gender-sensitive caring culture.