Table 1 Psychometric measures of psychological violence
# | Developer | Assessment | Characteristics | Target groups | Psychometrics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Shepard & Campbell [29] Copyright 1992 | Abusive Behavior Inventory | 30-item scale with 2 subscales that measure the frequency of physical and psychological abusive behaviours. The psychological abuse subscale includes 17 items. | Females with current or former intimate partners. | Internal consistency: Psychological abuse = 0.88–0.92. Evidence of convergent, discriminant, criterion and factorial validity |
2 | Hegarty, Sheehan, and Schonfeld [30]; Hegarty, Bush, and Sheehan [31] Copyright 1999 | Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) | 30-item scale with 4 subscales that measure severe combined abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse and harassment. The emotional abuse subscale includes 11 items. | Females with current or former intimate partners for longer than one month. | Internal consistency: Emotional abuse = 0.93. Evidence of content, construct, criterion and factorial validity |
3 | Sullivan and Bybee [32]; Sullivan, Parisian, and Davidson [33]; O’Leary [34] | Index of Psychological Abuse | 33-item scale that measures the degree to which assailants used ridicule, harassment, criticism, and emotional withdrawal. | Females in dating and marital relationships. | Internal consistency: 0.97 |
4 | Rodenburg and Fantuzzo [35] Copyright 1993 | Measure of Wife Abuse | 60-item scale with 4 subscales that measure the frequency of physical, sexual, psychological and verbal abusive behaviours. The psychological abuse subscale includes 15 items and the verbal abuse subscale includes 14 items. | Females with current or former intimate partners. | Internal consistency: Total scale = 0.93 Verbal abuse = 0.83 Psychological abuse = 0.94 Evidence of convergent and factorial validity |
5 | Multidimensional Measure of Emotional Abuse MMEA | 28-item scale (reduced from 54 items) that measures restrictive engulfment, hostile withdrawal, denigration and dominance/intimidation. | College students reporting on current or past dating relationships. | Internal consistency: Restrictive engulfment = 0.85 Hostile withdrawal = 0.91 Denigration = 0.92 Dominance/intimidation = 0.91 Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity | |
6 | Hudson [38] Copyright 1992 | Partner Abuse Scale—Non-Physical | 25-item scale that measures the magnitude of perceived nonphysical abuse received from a spouse or partner; 2 of the items assess sexual abuse. | Partners in dating, cohabiting and marital relationships. | Internal consistency: > 0.90. Evidence of content and factorial validity |
7 | Sackett and Saunders [39] Copyright 1999 | Profile of Psychological Abuse | 21-item scale that measures a wide variety of psychological abuse. | Abused females. | Internal consistency: Jealous control = 0.85 Ignore = 0.80 Ridicule traits = 0.79 Criticize behaviour = 0.75 Evidence of convergent and criterion validity |
8 | Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory (PMWI). | 58-item scale that measures psychological maltreatment of women by their male intimate partners. | Females in intimate relationships. | Internal consistency: Dominance/isolation = 0.95 Emotional/verbal = 0.93 Evidence of convergent, discriminant, criterion and factorial validity | |
9 | Tolman [41] | Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory (PMWI)—Short Form | 14-item scale that measures psychological maltreatment of women by their male intimate partners. | Females in intimate relationships. | Internal consistency: Dominance/Isolation = 0.88 Emotional/verbal = 0.92 Evidence of construct, convergent and discriminant validity |
10 | Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, and Sugarman [42]; Straus, Hamby, and Warren [43] Copyright 2003 | Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS-2) | 78-item scale that assesses both victimization and perpetration. The 39-item victimization scale includes 5 subscales that measure physical assault, psychological aggression, sexual coercion, negotiation and injury between partners. The psychological aggression subscale includes 8 items that assess verbal and symbolic acts that are intended to cause fear or psychological distress. | Partners in dating, cohabiting and marital relationships. | Internal consistency: Psychological aggression = 0.80 (Mechanic et al., 2000b); 0.82 (Lucente et al., 2001) |
11 | Safe Dates— Psychological Abuse Victimization | 14-item scale that measures psychological victimization in dating relationships. | Male and female students in grades 8-9. | Internal consistency: 0.91. | |
12 | Smith, Earp, and DeVellis [46]; Smith, Smith, and Earp [47]; Smith, Thornton, DeVellis, Earp, and Coker [48] Copyright 2002 | Women’s Experiences with Battering (WEB) | 10-item scale that measures prevalence of the battering of women. | Females with current or former male intimate partners. | Internal consistency: 0.91–0.99 Evidence of convergent, discriminant, and critierion validity |
13 | Sherin et al [49] Copyright [50] | Hurt, Insulted, Threatened with Harm and Screamed (HITS) Domestic Violence Screening Tool | 4-item scale with one question on physical violence and three on psychological: insult, threat, and scream. Measured on 5-point Likert scale from “Never” to “Frequently”. | Both male and female victims of domestic violence. | Cronbach’s alpha 0.85 |
14 | Swahnberg and Wijma [51]. | The NorVold Abuse Questionnaire (NorAQ) | Three-item subscale of emotional abuse (mild, moderate and severe; “No”, “Yes, as a child < 18”, “Yes, as an adult ≥ 18”, “Yes, as a child and an adult”). “Current suffering” from abuse measured on 11-point Likert from “0 = No Suffering” to “10 = Terrible Suffering”. | Female experiences of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. | Good validity and test-retest reliability |
15 | Graham-Kevan and Archer [52] | Controlling Behaviors Scale-Revised (CBS-R) | 24-item behavioural scale with 5 subscales; “economic abuse”, “coercion and threats”, “intimidation”, “emotional abuse”, and “isolation”. Report on one’s own and partners behaviour on 5-point Likert scale from “0 = never” to “4 = always”. Either four sub-scores or one total-score, separately for self and partner. | Developed to compare across sample types for both male and female respondents. | Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86. |
16 | Follingstad, Coyne, and Gambone [53] | Follingstad Psychological Aggression Scale - FPAS | 17-items each representing a category of psychological violence. Items are grouped in three subscales: mild, moderate and severe. Scored on Likert scale from 1-10 from “not psychological abuse at all” to “extreme psychological abuse”. | Victims of psychological abuse. | Internal consistency Cronbach’s alpha was 0.98 (mild, moderate and severe items: 0.92, 0.95, and 0.96). |
17 | Dutton, Goodman and Schmidt [54] | Coercion in Intimate Partner Relationship Scale. | 48-items with 9 subscales; Personal Activities/Appearances, support/social life/family, household, work/economic/resources, health, intimate relationship, legal, immigration, children/parenting. | Two separate sets of 48-items for both demands made by partner to respondent and by respondent made to partner. | Strong support for convergent validity and evidence of predictive validity. |
18 | Follingstad [55] | Measure on Psychologically Abusive Behaviors (MPAB) | 14-items each representing a category of psychological violence (more severe than FPAS); Items are grouped in three subscales; mild, moderate and severe. Scored on Likert scale from 1–10 from “not a violation at all” to “strong violation”. Malignant intention incorporated in questions. | Usable with dating or married populations, cohabitating or non-cohabiting relationships, males or females, and heterosexual or homosexual couples. | Internal consistency 0.98 (mild, moderate and severe items: 0.94, 0.94 and 0.94). |
19 | Rogers and Follingstad [56] | Global Perceived Harm (PH) | Eight-item scale measuring believed effect of partners psychological maltreatment on psychological, physical and/or daily functioning as well as negative perception of relationship and world in general. Scored on 5-point Likert scale from “a little” to “a lot”. | A scale reflecting impacts from women’s experience with battering and negative changes seen in oneself and one’s relationship. | Reliability statistic of 0.93. |
20 | Campbell, Campbell, King, Parker and Ryan [57] | Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA-NP) | The ISA is a 30-item abuse scale with a 19-item subscale of non-physical abuse measured on a 5-point Likert scale from “1 = never” to (5 = very frequently). Clinical cut-off score for non-physical is 25. | Female victims of physical and emotional abuse. | Alpha coefficient 0.95. |
21 | Campbell et al. [58] Copyright 2004. | Revised Danger Assessment (DA) | Risk assessment for femicide; 20-items (both physical, sexual and psychological). Number of total “yes” answers. | Female victims of severe battering. | Sensitivity of R-DA ranged from 0.545 from extreme Danger level to 0.987 if increased danger was used (Mean sensitivity = 0.750 and specificity = 0.863). |