Introduction:

Perceived risk of HIV is significantly associated with testing behaviors, condom use, and adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis. The Perceived Risk of HIV Scale offers several advan tages in the assessment of this construct compared to other existing instruments. However, its application in the Chilean population has not yet been investigated, and previous studies have yielded conflicting evidence regarding its factorial structure. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale in Chilean university students and to assess measurement invariance across female and male participants.

Method:

A cross-sectional design was used with a sample of 370 university students from Temuco, aged 18 to 29 years. A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the factorial structure and test for measurement invariance.

Results:

Findings indicated adequate goodness-of-fit indices for a one-factor model, satisfactory internal consistency, and evidence of measurement equivalence by gender.

Conclusions:

The Spanish version of the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale is a brief instrument with evidence of reliability and validity. It offers substantial advantages for assessing perceived HIV risk among Chilean youth, particularly for use in the implementation and evaluation of clinical and community-based HIV prevention interventions. Nonetheless, improvements to its structure are recommended for future research.

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