Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a worldwide public health problem. One of the most frequent forms of this type of violence in western societies is psychological IPVAW. According to ...the European Union (EU) Fundamental Rights Association (FRA) the prevalence of psychological IPVAW in the EU is 43%. However, the measurement invariance of the measure addressing psychological IPVAW in this survey has not yet been assessed.
The aim of this study is to ensure the cross-national comparability of this measure, by evaluating its measurement invariance across the 28 EU countries in a sample of 37,724 women, and to examine how the levels of this type of violence are distributed across the EU.
Our results showed that the psychological IPVAW measure presented adequate psychometric properties (reliability and validity) in all countries. A latent structure of one factor was supported and scalar invariance was established in all countries. The average levels of psychological IPVAW were higher in countries like Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden compared to the rest of the EU countries. In many of the other countries the levels of this type of violence overlapped.
Our findings underlined the importance of using appropriate statistical methods to make valid cross-national comparisons in large population surveys.
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Despite being rated as some of the world’s most gender equal countries, Sweden and neighboring Nordic nations show high rates of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). As the news media ...contribute to the shaping of public attitudes, this article pursues a two-step discourse analysis of how IPVAW was represented in seven Swedish newspapers during 2018. Although an individualistic discourse on IPVAW was found to be most prevalent, articles where perpetrators were presented as non-Swedish more frequently contained a structural framing of IPVAW. This confirms previously noted tendencies toward individualization and othering of IPVAW in Sweden.
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Intimate partner violence (IPV) and child abuse (CA) are two forms of family violence with shared qualities and risk factors, and are forms of violence that tend to overlap. Acceptability of violence ...in partner relationships is a known risk factor in IPV just as acceptability of parent–child aggression is a risk factor in CA. We hypothesized that these acceptability attitudes may be linked and represent the expression of a general, underlying nonspecific acceptance of violence in close family relationships. The sample involved 164 male IPV offenders participating in a batterer intervention program. Implicit measures, which assess constructs covertly to minimize response distortions, were administered to assess acceptability of partner violence against women and acceptability of parent–child aggression. To determine whether acceptability attitudes regarding both forms of violence were related to a higher order construct tapping general acceptance of family violence, Bayesian confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Findings supported a hierarchical (bifactor) model with a general factor expressing a nonspecific acceptance of family violence, and two specific factors reflecting acceptability of violence in intimate partner and parent–child relationships, respectively. This hierarchical model supporting a general acceptance of violence in close family relationships can inform future research aiming to better understand the connections between IPV and CA.
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The aim of this study was to understand the reasons why Spain has one of the lowest prevalence rates of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) in the European Union. Using a qualitative and ...inductive research approach, a total of five focus groups (n = 19) and 10 unstructured interviews with key informants were conducted. Three main categories were identified as possible explanations of the relatively low prevalence of IPVAW in Spain: law and policy, social awareness, and cultural patterns. Lessons learned and implications to improve future macrolevel intervention and prevention strategies are discussed.
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In this study, we analyze first whether there is a common spatial distribution of child maltreatment (CM) and intimate partner violence (IPV), and second, whether the risks of CM and IPV are ...influenced by the same neighborhood characteristics, and if these risks spatially overlap. To this end we used geocoded data of CM referrals (N = 588) and IPV incidents (N = 1450) in the city of Valencia (Spain). As neighborhood proxies, we used 552 census block groups. Neighborhood characteristics analyzed at the aggregated level (census block groups) were: Neighborhood concentrated disadvantage (neighborhood economic status, neighborhood education level, and policing activity), immigrant concentration, and residential instability. A Bayesian joint modeling approach was used to examine the spatial distribution of CM and IPV, and a Bayesian random-effects modeling approach was used to analyze the influence of neighborhood-level characteristics on small-area variations of CM and IPV risks. For CM, 98% of the total between-area variation in risk was captured by a shared spatial component, while for IPV the shared component was 77%. The risks of CM and IPV were higher in neighborhoods characterized by lower levels of economic status and education, and higher levels of policing activity, immigrant concentration, and residential instability. The correlation between the log relative risk of CM and IPV was .85. Most census block groups had either low or high risks in both outcomes (with only 10.5% of the areas with mismatched risks). These results show that certain neighborhood characteristics are associated with an increase in the risk of family violence, regardless of whether this violence is against children or against intimate partners. Identifying these high-risk areas can inform a more integrated community-level response to both types of family violence. Future research should consider a community-level approach to address both types of family violence, as opposed to individual-level intervention addressing each type of violence separately.
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The high prevalence of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) in countries with high levels of gender equality has been defined as the "Nordic paradox". In this study we compared physical ...and sexual IPVAW prevalence data in two countries exemplifying the Nordic paradox: Sweden (N = 1483) and Spain (N = 1447). Data was drawn from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Survey on violence against women. To ascertain whether differences between these two countries reflect true differences in IPVAW prevalence, and to rule out the possibility of measurement bias, we conducted a set of analyses to ensure measurement equivalence, a precondition for appropriate and valid cross-cultural comparisons. Results showed that in both countries items were measuring two separate constructs, physical and sexual IPVAW, and that these factors had high internal consistency and adequate validity. Measurement equivalence analyses (i.e., differential item functioning, and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis) supported the comparability of data across countries. Latent means comparisons between the Spanish and the Swedish samples showed that scores on both the physical and sexual IPVAW factors were significantly higher in Sweden than in Spain. The effect sizes of these differences were large: 89.1% of the Swedish sample had higher values in the physical IPVAW factor than the Spanish average, and this percentage was 99.4% for the sexual IPVAW factor as compared to the Spanish average. In terms of probability of superiority, there was an 80.7% and 96.1% probability that a Swedish woman would score higher than a Spanish woman in the physical and the sexual IPVAW factors, respectively. Our results showed that the higher prevalence of physical and sexual IPVAW in Sweden than in Spain reflects actual differences and are not the result of measurement bias, supporting the idea of the Nordic paradox.
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In the last decades, prevention measures have been taken globally to reduce the high prevalence of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) in our societies. As a consequence, a gradual ...reduction in the prevalence of IPVAW in the younger generations should be expected. However, international prevalence data suggest that this is not the case. In the present study, we aim to compare IPVAW-prevalence rates across age groups in the adult population in Spain. We used data from the Spanish 2019 national survey based on 9,568 interviews with women, reporting IPVAW in three time periods: lifetime, the last 4 years, and the last year. To ensure accurate comparisons of IPVAW-prevalence rates across age groups, we first examined the psychometric properties, and measurement invariance of the set of questions addressing the different types of IPVAW (i.e., physical, sexual, psychological) in this survey. Results supported a three-factor latent structure addressing psychological, physical, and sexual IPVAW, showing high-internal consistency and validity evidence. For lifetime prevalence, the youngest age groups (18–24 years) were those with the highest latent mean in psychological and physical IPVAW, with those aged 25 to 34 years having the highest score in sexual IPVAW. Women aged 18 to 24 years showed the highest factor scores in the three types of violence during the last 4 years and during the last year. A number of potential explanatory hypotheses are proposed to better understand the high prevalence of IPVAW among younger generations. The reason why IPVAW prevalence remains alarmingly high among young women, despite the preventive measures taken in recent years, is a research question that remains open. Prevention efforts should target younger generations if IPVAW is to be eradicated in the long term. However, this goal will only be achieved if those prevention efforts prove to be effective.
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ObjectivesTo ensure the cross-national comparability of the set of questions addressing physical and sexual intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) included in the European Union (EU) Agency ...for Fundamental Rights (FRA) survey. Once the measurement invariance of these measures is established, we aim to make appropriate and valid comparisons of the levels of physical and sexual IPVAW across the EU countries.DesignCross-sectional, population-based study.ParticipantsData were drawn from the survey conducted by the FRA on violence against women, including the responses of 42 002 adult women from the 28 countries of the EU.Main outcome measuresThe set of questions addressing lifetime prevalence of physical and sexual IPVAW used in the FRA survey. The psychometric properties (ie, reliability and validity) of these measures were examined, as well as their latent structure and their measurement invariance across the 28 EU countries.ResultsThe physical and sexual IPVAW measures presented adequate internal consistency and validity evidence based on their relations to other variables in all countries. A latent two-factor structure was supported and scalar invariance was established across countries. Our results showed that the average levels of physical and sexual IPVAW were highest in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and UK compared with the rest of the EU countries. In many of the other countries the levels of these types of violence overlapped, especially in the case of sexual IPVAW.ConclusionsThe findings of this study showed that the set of questions addressing physical and sexual IPVAW included in the FRA survey can be compared across all EU countries, highlighting the importance of testing the measurement equivalence of the instruments used in large sociodemographic surveys in order to make valid cross-national comparisons.
Attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) are being increasingly recognized as a central issue for comprehensively understanding this complex phenomenon. While IPVAW remains ...widespread in Latin America, knowledge about it and research on attitudes toward IPVAW are limited. This systematic review synthesized quantitative peer-reviewed studies that address attitudes toward IPVAW in Latin America. The review was conducted between April 2020 and July 2022 in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations using the Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycINFO databases. In total, 52 of the 149 eligible articles were selected based on the inclusion criteria. Four sets of attitudes toward IPVAW were identified: legitimacy, acceptability, attitudes toward the intervention, and perceived severity. Attitude correlates were the most common research topic in more than half of the studies but were generally focused on a single country. Among the few multi-country studies, the sample of Latin American countries was small. The remaining studies were divided into three research themes: attitude as a predictor, interventions for attitude change, and scale validation. Our study aims to motivate future research on the identified knowledge gaps and may be useful for the implementation of appropriate prevention policies and intervention programs to counter IPVAW on a regional scale.
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