What the Eyes Don't See, the Heart Doesn't Feel? Developing a Brazilian instrument to assess psychological violence against women

Abstract

This study aimed to develop an instrument capable of measuring psychological violence practiced by an intimate partner against women, investigating which behaviors are identified as violent. The research was developed in two stages. First, the content and the internal structure of 61 items describing behaviors considered as psychological violence were analyzed. The test was named as Scale of Psychological Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships (EVIPRIM). Second, the factorial structure obtained was confirmed and the relationship between psychological violence and negative emotional states and self-esteem was checked. The results of the semantic and content analysis indicated that seven items should be excluded as they do not represent psychological violence. After Exploratory Factor Analysis, the best structure found has two factors. Factor one with 24 items that assessed Direct Psychological Violence and factor two with 12 items that assessed Indirect Psychological Violence. The adequacy of the structure was observed from the excellent fit indices obtained in Confirmatory Factor Analysis as well as the excellent values of internal consistency reliability. At last, the higher the scores of psychological violence, the greater the negative emotional state and the lower the self-esteem.