The Index of Attitudes Toward Homosexuals: Factor Analysis in a National Sample of Oncology Clinicians

The Index of Attitudes toward Homosexuals (IAH) was published by Hudson and Ricketts in 1980 as a unidimensional index to measure affective responses to homosexuals. Siebert et al. identified two factors in a sample of predominantly female social science students: Cognitive/Social Distance (α = .91) and Affective/Attraction-Advances (α = .79). The present study sought to conduct a factor analysis to confirm the factor structure of the IAH in a national sample of oncology clinicians (n = 406). Exploratory factor analysis conducted on a random subset of 40% of survey respondents (n = 163) indicated three factors, termed: Avoidance (α = .92), Approach (α = .75) and Acceptance (α = .80). Confirmatory factor analysis conducted on the remaining 60% of respondents (n = 243) confirmed the three-factor structure (final Chi-square/DF = 1.988, RMSEA = 0.064, Bentler CFI = 0.949). Given the diversity, size, and strength of the sampling frame, future research using the IAH in clinical settings can obtain more precise findings by analyzing data according to these three factors.