The Perceived Severity of Adolescent Dating Violence (PS-ADV) Scale: A Validation Study

Objectives: Dating violence is a widespread social problem with increasing prevalence among adolescents. The perceived severity of dating violence is an important factor related to key aspects of this type of violence, such as acceptability, justification, attitudes toward intervention, and victims’...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sara Arrojo, Manuel Martín-Fernández, Marisol Lila, Raquel Conchell, Enrique Gracia
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sociedad Española de Psicología Jurídica y Forense 2024-01-01
Series:European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context
Subjects:
Online Access: https://journals.copmadrid.org/ejpalc/art/ejpalc2024a3
Description
Summary:Objectives: Dating violence is a widespread social problem with increasing prevalence among adolescents. The perceived severity of dating violence is an important factor related to key aspects of this type of violence, such as acceptability, justification, attitudes toward intervention, and victims’ willingness to seek help. The aim of this study was to validate an instrument to assess the perceived severity of dating violence in a sample of adolescents: the Perceived Severity of Adolescent Dating Violence (PS-ADV) scale. Method: Two groups of high school students, one with 621 adolescents (47.2% females) and another with 300 (50% females), aged 13-18 years were selected by a two-stage stratified sampling procedure. Results: The results indicated that the PS-ADV scale has excellent internal consistency (α = .89) and a clear one-factor latent structure (CFI = .96, TLI = .94, RMSEA [90% CI] = .074 [.062, .087]). For validity, the PS-ADV scores were related negatively to victim-blaming attitudes and ambivalent sexism (hostile and benevolent sexism), and positively to empathy (empathic concern, perspective taking, fantasy). Conclusions: This study provides evidence that the PS-ADV scale is a psychometrically sound measure for assessing the perceived severity of dating violence among adolescents.
ISSN:1889-1861
1989-4007