BACKGROUND: Social bullying in academic nursing schools is an understudied area, yet extant research shows it is prevalent.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to generate a formal definition for academic social bullying and content validate an instrument measuring it in academic nursing.
METHODS: Classic psychometric theory and survey design were used to develop an instrument measuring academic social bullying. Extensive literature review and analysis of existing instruments were conducted; 108 items indicating bullying behaviors and organizational characteristics were created. This study targeted establishing initial content validity. Forty nurse experts who had experienced or published on academic bullying were invited; 24 responded. Experts rated agreement with relevance/appropriateness of items using a Likert scale and provided comments.
RESULTS: Forty items with content validity indexes near 0.80 and supportive comments were retained. A formal definition was developed from experts' feedback.
CONCLUSIONS: Insights regarding differences between bullying and incivility were obtained.