Psychometric properties of the Index of Homophobia Scale in registered nurses

The psychometric properties of the Index of Homophobia Scale (IHS; Bouton et al., 1987) were examined in a sample of registered nurses (n = 95). Scores on the IHS may range from 0 (no homophobia) to 28 (highly homophobic). This sample had relatively low total scores on the IHS (M = 7.99, SD = 5.41), indicating that subjects were predominantly not homophobic. Internal consistency as estimated by Cronbach's alpha was .88. The average item mean was 1.14 (SD = 0.29) ranging from .77 to 1.48. Corrected item-to-total scale correlations were satisfactory, ranging from .58 to .75. Inter-item correlations ranged from .35 to .67 indicating some redundancy in content sampling. The 7-item IHS indicates promise for future use with registered nurses, and perhaps also with other health care professionals in adequately and accurately measuring homophobia.