Background: Protective behavioral strategies (PBS) have shown utility in reducing alcohol-related negative consequences. The Protective Behavioral Strategies Scale (PBSS) is one of the most widely used and well-validated instruments for evaluating these strategies. However, a Spanish adaptation of this or any other measure of PBS is not available. We aimed to provide a Spanish version of PBSS-20 and examine its psychometric properties.
Method: We recruited 538 undergraduate students from three Spanish universities (mean age = 21.2; females = 78%). Measures included the Spanish-PBSS-20 (S-PBSS-20), Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (YAACQ), Daily Drinking Questionnaire, and frequency of alcohol use, drunkenness, and binge drinking.
Results: Our results support the use of the original 3-factor structure of the PBSS-20. Internal consistency reliability ranged between 0.71-0.77, and evidence of validity was provided according to the expected relationships with other variables. Exploratory factor analyses provided evidence of convergent/discriminant validity of S-PBSS-20.
Conclusions: The results suggest that PBSS-20 is a useful instrument for assessing protective behavioral strategies in alcohol users. The S-PBSS-20 could be useful for research on alcohol-related protective behavioral strategies and consequences, and could also inform the design of educational interventions for promoting the use of protective strategies and reducing alcohol-related negative consequences.