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

AIM: This study aims to validate the Nijmegen Gender Awareness in Medicine Scale, which assesses gender sensitivity and gender‐role ideology towards patients in the Spanish language for use among physicians and nurses. BACKGROUND: Women are more likely to suffer pain, delays and health consequences related to low therapeutic effort. Health professionals' gender awareness may minimize such bias; however, the only instrument to assess such awareness is limited to physicians and lacks a Spanish version. METHODS: After using the back‐translation method, a sample of 167 Spanish nurses and nursing students completed the instrument. In order to obtain additional validity evidence, 98 health professionals filled in gender sensitivity and gender‐role ideology towards patients' subscales and the short versions of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory. RESULTS: Gender‐role ideology towards patients correlated strongly with sexist attitudes, demonstrating convergent validity, and Cronbach's alpha coefficients showed an adequate internal consistency. CONCLUSIONS: Nijmegen Gender Awareness in Medicine Scale perfectly applies to nurse population, and this adaptation also broadens its use for Spanish professionals. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse managers and educators can use this applicable tool to treat low gender awareness levels as a modifiable risk factor and promote a gender‐sensitive caring culture.