Attitudes towards Violence in Adolescents and Youth Intimate Partner Relationships: Validation of the Spanish Version of the EAV

Julia Pérez-Sáenz,Javier Ortuño-Sierra,Andrea Gutiérrez García,Rebeca Aritio-Solana,Edurne Chocarro de Luis

doi:10.3390/ijerph18020566

Julia Pérez-Sáenz, Javier Ortuño-Sierra + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020566

Copy DOI

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Attitudes Scale Towards Violence (Escala de Actitudes hacia la Violencia, EAV) in adolescents. The EAV is a questionnaire devoted to assess attitudes towards violence. Additionally, the relationship between EAV and violence manifestations and depressive symptoms was analyzed. The final sample comprised a total of 1248 students in a cross-sectional survey. The EAV, the Modified Conflict Tactics Scale (M-CTS), and the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS) were used. The analysis of the internal structure of the EAV yielded a two-factor structure as the most adequate. The EAV scores showed measurement invariance across gender and age. The McDonald’s Omega was 0.862 and 0.872 for the two hypothesized factors. Furthermore, self-reported attitudes towards violence were associated with violence manifestations both as a victim and as a perpetrator and depressive symptoms. These results support that the EAV is a brief and easy tool to assess self-reported violence attitudes in intimate partner relationships in adolescents from the general population. The assessment of these attitudes, and its associations with violence and depressive manifestations, may help us to enhance the possibility of an early identification of adolescents potentially at risk for suffering violence as a victim or as a perpetrator.

Highlights

The correlation between the constructs was lower than the root square of average variance extracted (AVE), indicating adequate evidences of discriminant validity
These results revealed that scores on the Modified Conflict Tactics Scale (M-CTS) and depression have significant effects on attitudes towards violence among adolescents and youths
Worrying is the fact the intimate partner violence (IPV) is starting earlier, with a larger number of adolescents involved in this kind of violence [5,6,7]

Summary

Introduction

An increasing interest is being devoted to intimate partner violence (IPV), due to the severe physical, psychological, and social consequences associated, as well as the growing prevalence through the world [1,2,3,4] This specific kind of violence that includes physical, verbal, and sexual violence has become a serious and prevalent problem, in adulthood and in adolescence and into emerging adulthood [5,6,7]. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against women revealed that women between 15 and 49 years old had suffer some kind of partner violence in percentages that ranged from 13 to 61 percent [8] These rates are worrying, especially taking into account that some of the mental and behavioural problems, as well as violence manifestations that develops during adolescence, tend to perpetuate to adulthood [9,10,11]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion