Investigation of Psychometric Properties of Blood/Injection Fear Scale-Persian Version (BIFS-PV)

Blood, injection, and injury (BII) phobia is one of the most common psychiatric disorders based on the criteria introduced in DSM-IV (fourth edition). Given the lack of a Persian instrument for BII phobia examination and the absence of accurate data on this type of phobia in the Iranian population, it is essential to assess the fear of BII in order to analyze and help mitigate BII phobia across the country. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of blood/ injection fear scale (BIFS-PV) in a sample of the Iranian population. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 246 patients (aged ≥ 14 years) referring to Kowsar Hospital, Semnan, were selected through convenience sampling. The research instruments included a demographic questionnaire, BIFS, blood-injection symptom scale (BISS), fear savory scale-III (FSS-III), and life orientation test (LOT). IBM SPSS Statistics 21.0 and IBM SPSS Amos 21 were used to analyze the data. Based on the results, the correlation coefficients of BIFS with BISS and FSS-III were -0.41 and -0.24, respectively, indicating convergent validity of BIFS. The correlation of BIFS with LOT was 0.37, suggesting the divergent validity of the scale. Factor analysis confirmed the appropriate fitting of the two-factor model of BIFS-PV with available data. Furthermore, examining the psychometric properties of BIFS-PV established internal consistency of the total scale (0.96) and its injection subscale (0.95) and blood subscale (0.91). Moreover, the test-retest reliability coefficients of BIFS-PV and its injection and blood subscales were 0.86, 0.90, and 0.91, respectively. The results of the study corroborated the factor structure and validity of BIFS-PV in the study population. Therefore, this scale can be implemented as an effective tool in psychological research.