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Cited by 225Intimate Partner and Family ViolenceElder Abuse and NeglectChild Abuse and Trauma

Development of a brief measure of intimate partner violence experiences: the Composite Abuse Scale (Revised)—Short Form (CAS R -SF)

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Ford-Gilboe, Marilyn, Wathen, C Nadine, Varcoe, Colleen, MacMillan, Harriet L, Scott-Storey, Kelly, Mantler, Tara, Hegarty, Kelsey, Perrin, Nancy·2016·BMJ Open
DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012824PMC PMC5168640
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Abstract

Objectives: Approaches to measuring intimate partner violence (IPV) in populations often privilege physical violence, with poor assessment of other experiences. This has led to underestimating the scope and impact of IPV. The aim of this study was to develop a brief, reliable and valid self-report measure of IPV that adequately captures its complexity. Design: Mixed-methods instrument development and psychometric testing to evolve a brief version of the Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) using secondary data analysis and expert feedback. Setting: Data from 5 Canadian IPV studies; feedback from international IPV experts. Participants: 31 international IPV experts including academic researchers, service providers and policy actors rated CAS items via an online survey. Pooled data from 6278 adult Canadian women were used for scale development. Primary/secondary outcome measures: Scale reliability and validity; robustness of subscales assessing different IPV experiences. Results: A 15-item version of the CAS has been developed (Composite Abuse Scale (Revised)—Short Form, CAS R -SF), including 12 items developed from the original CAS and 3 items suggested through expert consultation and the evolving literature. Items cover 3 abuse domains: physical, sexual and psychological, with questions asked to assess lifetime, recent and current exposure, and abuse frequency. Factor loadings for the final 3-factor solution ranged from 0.81 to 0.91 for the 6 psychological abuse items, 0.63 to 0.92 for the 4 physical abuse items, and 0.85 and 0.93 for the 2 sexual abuse items. Moderate correlations were observed between the CAS R -SF and measures of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and coercive control. Internal consistency of the CAS R -SF was 0.942. These reliability and validity estimates were comparable to those obtained for the original 30-item CAS. Conclusions: The CAS R -SF is brief self-report measure of IPV experiences among women that has demonstrated initial reliability and validity and is suitable for use in population studies or other studies. Additional validation of the 15-item scale with diverse samples is required.

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  • The CAS-SF showed strong internal consistency in its original validation sample (α=0.94) and adequate internal consistency in the current study (α=0.78).

    “This measure, validated in a sample of 6,278 Canadian women, showed strong internal consistency (α = 0.94) with this original sample (Ford-Gilboe et al., 2016) and adequate internal consistency in the current study (α = 0.78).”

    From Coercive Control in the Courtroom: the Legal Abuse Scale (LAS) (2023) · cites this paper as Ford-Gilboe et al., 2016

    The Methods report a pooled sample of 6,278 women, and Results > Phase 2 report strong internal consistency (α=0.942) for the brief scale. However, that α was calculated in the development subset (n=4,143), not the entire 6,278-woman sample. The current study’s α=0.78 is the citing authors’ own result, not a finding attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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  • A second expert consultation with 10 experts rated items as Essential, Important, or Not Important; only items rated Essential and/or Important by the majority were retained, yielding 27 items administered.

    “To reduce the number of items further, the first author sought a second round of consultation with 10 experts who were asked to rate each item as “Essential,” “Important” or “Not Important” following Ford-Gilboe and colleagues (2016).”

    From Coercive Control in the Courtroom: the Legal Abuse Scale (LAS) (2023) · cites this paper as Ford-Gilboe and colleagues (2016)

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Sorted by citations

Authors
Ford-Gilboe, M., Wathen, C. N., Varcoe, C., MacMillan, H. L., Scott-Storey, K., Mantler, T., Hegarty, K., & Perrin, N.
Affiliations
  • Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
  • Western University (CA)
  • University of British Columbia (CA)
  • McMaster University (CA)
  • University of New Brunswick (CA)
  • The University of Melbourne (AU)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
ORCID
Venue
BMJ Open
Publisher
BMJ
Published
2016-12
Volume
6
Issue
12
Pages
e012824
ISSN
2044-6055 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012824
PMC
PMC5168640
OpenAlex
W2559802746
Cited by
225
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 35 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2
FWCI
6.88
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc
Locations
  • BMJ Open (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Open Scholarship Institutional Repository (Washington University in St. Louis) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Scholarship@Western (Western University) (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Public Health Agency of Canada
  • Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
  • Public Health Agency
  • Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Elder Abuse and Neglect
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
Keywords
intimate partner violence, Composite Abuse Scale, short-form scale, self-report measures, physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological violence, women, scale development, psychometric validation, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, coercive control, abuse frequency
MeSH terms
Intimate Partner Violence, Adult, Canada, Female, Humans, Middle Aged, Predictive Value of Tests, Psychometrics, Reference Values, Reproducibility of Results, Prevalence, Self Report

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