Measuring Acceptability of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Development and Validation of the A-IPVAW Scale

Abstract

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a major social and public health problem of global proportions. Public attitudes toward IPVAW shape the social environment in which such violence takes place, and attitudes of acceptability of IPVAW are considered a risk factor to actual IPVAW. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale measuring acceptability of IPVAW (A-IPVAW). To this end, a sample of 1,800 respondents was recruited via social media. A second sample of 50 IPVAW offenders was used for concurrent validity analyses. Following a cross-validation approach and using item response theory analyses, we found that the latent structure of the scale was one-dimensional and very informative for high and very high levels of acceptability of IPVAW. Regarding criterion-related validity, we found that (a) our measure was related to perceived severity of IPVAW and ambivalent sexism, (b) men showed higher levels of acceptability than women, and (c) IPVAW offenders reported higher levels of acceptability than men from the general population. Taken together, our results provide evidence that the A-IPVAW is a reliable and valid instrument to assess acceptability of IPVAW.