Development and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Abuse Within Intimate Relationships Scale

Abstract

To facilitate development of effective prevention programs, there is a need to identify precursors to intimate partner violence. As a first step in this direction, this study was designed to develop a psychometrically sound measure of intimate partner abuse for young adults. Potential items were derived by examining existing measures and from responses of a sample of college students to four open-ended questions. A second sample of college students completed all items, and responses were subjected to exploratory factor analysis followed by confirmatory factor analysis. Results indicated that two general factors (physical and psychological abuse) with five subfactors (overt violence, restricting acts, emotional abuse, deceptive behaviors, and verbal abuse) were confirmable with excellent fit indices. The newly developed measure could shed light on early predictors of abusive behavior and provide a foundation for new early intervention strategies.