Psychometric Properties of a New Scale to Assess Family Violence in Older African American Women: The Family Violence Against Older Women (FVOW) Scale

• NCJ Number: 228875
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 15 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2009 Pages: 1213-1226
• Author(s): Anuradha Paranjape; Michael Rodriquez; John Gaughan; Nadine J. Kaslow
• Date Published: October 2009
• Length: 14 pages
• Grant Number(s): K23 NIH/NCRR RR023364
• Sponsoring Agency: Emory University Research Council
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Test/Measurement
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article reports on the development and psychometrics of the Family Violence in Older African American Women Scale (FVOW), a comprehensive scale designed to measure family violence against older African-American women.

Abstract

The FVOW was effective in identifying two distinct factors in violence against older African-American women by family members. These factors are entitled "Abuse" and "Caregiving Failure." The FVOW was found to be reliable, with excellent internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability. In addition, the FVOW demonstrated good construct validity when compared with other scales that measure similar constructs. Although these findings must be verified in different samples of older African-American women by using confirmatory factor analyses, the internal consistency reliability were very high, suggesting that the FVOW should show good to excellent reliability in other samples. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first scale that assesses the presence and severity of family violence against older women. Such violence encompasses both intimate partner violence (IPV) and elder mistreatment (EM) in the context of care-giving. Given cultural difference in definitions of family violence, this review of existing measures of family violence in older women indicates the need to develop a scale to assess family violence in older African-American women. Women eligible for this investigation were English-speaking women who identified themselves as African-Americans above the age of 50. A total of 158 women were recruited for the study from the ambulatory medicine clinics of a large, inner-city hospital in the southeastern United States. These clinics deliver primary care to a large number of older African-American women who live in the area. Items for the FVOW were derived from focus groups of older African-American women recruited from the same study site. 4 tables and 39 references