An initial validation of Tepper’s abusive supervision scale

Abusive supervision refers to the subjective employees’ perception of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact, against them. This study proposes a first validation of the Italian version of Tepper’s (2000) 15-item scale, in a sample of nurses. 496 nurses working in three hospitals in the North-West of Italy were investigated. Analyses were performed using SPSS and MPlus. The CFA confirmed the one factor structure, as in the original version of the scale, with satisfactory fit indexes. Moreover, discriminant and criterion validity analyses were performed. The findings show the good properties of the tool in its Italian version.