Physical and psychological abuse among a predominantly African American sample

The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to explore the prevalence of physical and psychological abuse between intimate partners in a non-clinical sample of predominantly African American women. The self-administered questionnaire included: a) demographic characteristics, b) the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA) designed to measure physical and psychological abuse c) the Family Violence Scale (FVS) designed to measure family history of violence and d) a question inquiring as to past history of sexual abuse and e) a question asking whether participants perceived that they were abused versus nonabused. Students, faculty and staff from a large midwestern urban commuter university with undergraduate and graduate programs were surveyed. A computerized random sampling procedure was used to select the sample. One hundred and seventy nine usable questionnaires were returned. The findings revealed a 15.6% rate of physical abuse, an 11.7% rate of psychological abuse and a 6% rate of both physical and psychological abuse among the sample. Women's perceptions of abuse (feeling abused versus not feeling abused) and the occupation of their partners (blue collar) accounted for most of the variance in physical (R2 = .32) and psychological abuse (R2 = .43). The findings have implications for expanding the practice of nursing to college campus populations to prevent, and intervene in issues of intimate partner abuse.