Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Opening Minds Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC) in nursing students.

Aims: To culturally adapt the OMS-HC and examine its psychometric properties in a sample of nursing students in Spain.

Design: A cross-sectional validation study design METHODS: The original scale was translated and adapted following the International Test Commission guidelines for translating and adapting tests. The reliability was measured using the ordinal alpha method. The factor structure was determined by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). A CFA was performed using the Diagonally Weighted Least Squares (DWLS) estimation method for ordinal data with robust standard errors. Convergent validity was assessed using Spearman's rank correlation coefficients between the OMS-HC scale and the Level of Contact Report.

Results: A total of 747 nursing students participated in the study. The Spanish version tested on nursing students included 15 items and the factorial structure was one-dimensional. This model obtained a good fit for both the absolute and the incremental fit indices. Convergent validity results showed a negative correlation between the level of contact report and scores on the one-dimensional version of the OMS-HC-15 items. The reliability was acceptable, as reflected by the ordinal alpha.

Conclusion: The OMS-HC has adequate psychometric properties in Spanish nursing students. This questionnaire may be useful for measuring a single aspect, namely stigma.

Implications For The Profession: Its relevance lies in the possibility for instructors to measure changes in stigma following educational or awareness-raising interventions to ensure that people with mental disorders receive better healthcare.