Development and validation of the domestic violence scale for ever-married women in India

Intimate partner violence against women exists in all cultures. Despite legal and policy measures, there is a lack of standardised contextual tools to assess specific experiences, particularly among ever-married women in India. Hence, developing a domestic violence (DV) scale for ever-married women in India is critical for accurate assessment, policymaking and research, allowing for better support and legal protection. The aim of the research is to develop and validate the DV scale for ever-married women in India.

The DV against women scale was developed based on reviewing literature and selecting items for a DV questionnaire, followed by expert evaluation and pilot testing. A multicentre study across 18 states in India with 15 507 participants was carried out to assess content validity and the reliability of the scales through test-retest and internal consistency measures. After a decade of assessment, the same scale was administered to 921 participants in one state at two time points, separated by a 10-year gap. Cronbach's alpha, overall percentage agreement and kappa statistics were used to examine the internal consistency and reliability.

The DV scales for ever-married women used 27 items which include the major domains of psychological violence, physical violence and sexual violence. Cronbach's alpha value of overall factors is 0.989, which shows excellent reliability and represents that our item that leads to DV is best defined. Test-retest reliability assessed using kappa statistics (62-98) had adequate properties to measure DV against women in India. The scale had Cronbach's α above 7.0, indicating a better internal consistency.

The validity and reliability of the scale over a two-time period indicated that the scales were comprehensible and culturally specific. Moreover, it had adequate properties to identify the DV against women in India and any other similar cultural context.