Design and validation of a scale for the aquatic competence assessment instrument in lifeguards

Drowning is a serious public health problem with profound economic and health impact. The objective was to design and analyze the validity of the content within a scale as to assess aquatic competence in aquatic rescue. The content validation has been carried out in accordance to the opinion, agreement and consensus of 9 experts using the Delphi technique. The validity (of comprehension) was bear out once the scale was applied to a separate sample. Following the collection of the contributions made by the trial of experts and adjusting the scale according to the indications, a second review was carried out obtaining in all of the scenarios values higher than 0.8 in the Kendall coefficient. The validity of content such as the confirmatory factorial analysis showed adequate measurements for the dimensions of the evaluation scale: aquatic competence in rescue and lifeguard. The results presented the Aquatic Competence Assessment Scale as valid and reliable, which allows the opening of a new line of work towards the development of cognitive and behavioral processes in the teaching and training of lifeguard, offering a measuring instrument to analyze its effect on the decision-making.