• Ana Delgado, Marta Aguar, María Castellano, and Juan de Dios Luna del Castillo.
• Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública, Granada, España. ana.delgado.easp@juntadeandalucia.es
• Aten Primaria. 2006 Jun 30; 38 (2): 82-9.

ObjectivesTo analyse the validity of content and of structure and the reliability of a questionnaire designed to measure ill-treatment (IT) of women by their partners.DesignDescriptive, transversal, multi-centre study.SettingFour urban health centres in Granada, Spain.ParticipantsThree hundred and ninety one women of 14 and over who consulted in primary care and had a stable partner for at least 3 months.Main MeasurementsQuestionnaire by means of interviews between December 2000 and May 2001, with 10 Likert-like questions on physical, psychological, and sexual mistreatment, social and demographic questions and various health indicators. We analysed content validity by means of exploratory factorial analysis, reliability of alpha-Cronbach factors and of corrected scale-item correlation coefficients, and structure validity.ResultsWe obtained 2 empirical IT factors that did not correspond to the theoretical dimensions of physical, psychological, and sexual mistreatment and explained 64.21% of variance. The first included all the questions on psychological abuse, one on physical abuse and the sexual abuse dimension. The second covered the remaining questions on physical IT and "breaking things in the home". The factors gave reliability coefficients of 0.8688 and 0.7072. Comparison by means of extreme groups technique showed that the questionnaire's structure is valid.ConclusionWe found this was a reliable and valid questionnaire for evaluating ill-treatment of women. Its use, particularly in primary care, could help expand and deepen understanding of the problem.

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