Validation of the scale for assessing the psychological vulnerability and its association with health of intimate partner violence victims in Chinese young adult population

PLoS One. 2020 Jul 6;15(7):e0235761. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235761. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The Women's Experience with Battering (WEB) scale is a self-report instrument that uses a 10-item Likert-type scale to measure IPV victims' cognitive and affective experience of battering. This study aimed to validate the Chinese version of the WEB scale using gender-neutral questions, Experience of Battering Scale (Chinese) (EBS-C), to assess the psychological vulnerability of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). The study adopted a range of methods, including translation and back translation, expert reviews, cognitive debriefing, and test-retest reliability assessment. The EBS-C was validated in a purposive convenience sample of 718 Chinese-speaking participants (male = 362; female = 356) aged 18-24 (mean age = 21.4) in Hong Kong. The results of CFA showed a good model fit: CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .03. The EBS-C was also found to be significantly associated with the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2; r = .13-.17, p < .01), depression (BDI-II: r = .15, p < .01), anxiety (GAD-7: r = .17, p < .01), interpersonal support (ISEL-12: r = -.27, p < .01), relationship satisfaction (RAS: r = -.36, p < .01), and self-esteem (RSES: r = -.22, p < .01). The study demonstrated the EBS-C to be a reliable and valid measure for assessing the psychological vulnerability of IPV victims. It is thus useful for identifying the risks such individuals face by assessing their experience of fear, danger, and disempowerment in the intimate relationship relative to abusive incident-based measures alone. The EBS-C will also be useful for developing effective treatments to address the psychological vulnerability resulting from IPV and will facilitate cross-cultural comparative research aimed at enriching our knowledge of IPV victimization.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Asian People / psychology*
  • Asian People / statistics & numerical data
  • Battered Women / psychology*
  • Battered Women / statistics & numerical data
  • Crime Victims / psychology*
  • Female
  • Health Status
  • Humans
  • Intimate Partner Violence / psychology*
  • Intimate Partner Violence / statistics & numerical data
  • Male
  • Self Report*
  • Sexual Partners / psychology*
  • Spouse Abuse / psychology*
  • Spouse Abuse / statistics & numerical data
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The work described in this paper was supported by the Seed Fund for Basic Research Grant of the University of Hong Kong (Project No. 201611159289). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.