Psychological Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the European Union: A Cross-National Invariance Study

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in BMC Public Health and is available as an open access article. Background: 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. Methods: 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. Results: 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. Conclusion: Our findings underlined the importance of using appropriate statistical methods to make valid cross-national comparisons in large population surveys. This course on intimate partner violence is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop or increase their knowledge of measurement invariance related to intimate partner violence. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article which includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A major benefit of reading research-based articles for continuing education is they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Manuel Martin-Fernandez, Enrique Gracia, and Marisol Lila Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information measurement invariance in psychological intimate partner violence against women. Specifically, a professional will: Summarize the components of emotional abuse Explain controlling behavior as an element of IPV Describe how cultural beliefs may affect surveys regarding IPV behaviors across countries Citation: Martin-Fernandez, Manuel, et al. Psychological Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the European Union: A Cross-National Invariance Study. BMC Public Health December, 2019.