Very few scales exist that measure violence against women and allow for comparative studies between Mexico and the United States. In this article, we present the results of a validation exercise for just such a scale. The scale was designed using, as a basis, some of the items in the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) and the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA), in an attempt to differentiate among three types of violence: physical, psychological, and sexual. One hundred and twenty women from diverse social groups in each country responded to a questionnaire in which they were asked to consider the severity of each item on a scale from 1 to 100. Factorial analysis confirms that women assign a different average weight to each type of violence. An analysis of variance test confirms that the different groups of women interviewed evaluated each type of violence in a consistent manner. Very reasonable alpha coefficients were obtained. The paper concludes by demonstrating with an example the use of the scale in prediction modeling.
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The authors would like to dedicate this manuscript to Agustín Ruíz, who passed away in April, 2004.
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Castro, R., García, L., Ruíz, A. et al. Developing an Index to Measure Violence Against Women for Comparative Studies Between Mexico and the United States. J Fam Viol 21, 95–104 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-005-9005-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-005-9005-z