Establishing Psychometric Validity of the PBSS-20 for Sexual Minority College Students

This study psychometrically evaluated the Protective Behavioral Strategies Scale-20 (PBSS-20) in a nationally recruited sample of sexual and non-sexual minority students. Participants included 1,730 college students ( M age = 19.41) from 12 universities, who were predominantly White non-Hispanic (63.6%), female (70%), and heterosexual (67.6%). Participants reported demographics and completed measures of hazardous alcohol use, alcohol-related negative consequences, and alcohol protective behavioral strategy use. Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and bifactor ESEM revealed an adequate model fit of the PBSS-20, supporting the hypothesized factor structure. Invariance testing revealed a similar factor structure for both sexual and non-sexual minority students. The PBSS-20 total and subscale scores were negatively associated with all alcohol outcome measures for all groups. This study provides additional support for the generalizability and utility of the PBSS-20, with suggestions for further refinement of the measure. This study has implications for measuring safe drinking behaviors among sexual and non-sexual minority college students.