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Perceived Emotional Abuse for Adult Scale: The Validity and Reliability Study
Literal meaning of the word “abuse” is “to exploit, to benefit, to encroach upon one’s kindness” (TDK, 2005: 991). Abuse is a phenomenon that can be encountered in any society at any level of development regardless of the culture, race or religion.
Emotional abuse is an umbrella term that covers the other types of abuse. Apart from existing on its own, this kind of abuse is also present in every circumstance of physical or sexual abuse. Moreover, the influence of emotional abuse may continue after the effects of other types of abuse disappear. (Arıcıoğlu 2003: 7).
Emotional abuse is a kind of abuse which is easier to describe for women. Emotional abuse can be defined as limiting one’s wife’s financially, preventing her from meeting friends and family, calling her names, humiliating, threatening her with death or attempting to kill her.
It has been speculated that as individuals with a history of abuse tend to have greater psychiatric problems and more difficulties in social relationships, they may have greater difficulty with establishing important recovery relationships. (Branstetter and friends 2008). Recent studies have shown that physical and sexual abuse of children is far more widespread than was previously recognized. However, emotional or psychological child abuse very often has a more profound impact on the child than either physical or sexual maltreatment in terms of its overall effect on the psyche, the spirit and the humanness of the individual. Although abuses that lead to bodily injury are reprehensible and tragic, nonetheless, insufficient attention has been paid to other patterns of abuse. (Firestone, (310) 552-0431). Emotional abuse of the mother and mother’s mental health were the most significant predictors of the child’s adjustment and social behavior (Graham and friends. 1997).
Method: This study aims to develop a scale determining the level of emotional abuse individuals perceive. To develop this scale, inventories concerning the subject and sources concerning the testing material have been reviewed. Emotional abuse has been described as below in the light of the review.
“Emotional abuse is a kind of emotional state which occurs as a result of the higher expectations of other adults in one’s environment, their being aggressive, critical, humiliating, unable to meet the needs of the person or show affection as well as rejecting the person, intimidating them, speaking in an ironic manner and not attaching value to the person. Emotional abuse can be seen either on its own or along with other kinds of abuse”
In order to obtain the items of the scale, 200 male and female students studying in different programs and classes were asked to write sentences conveying emotional abuse in accordance with the definition above. After studying the content of the expressions, 674 items containing ideas and feelings about emotional abuse were obtained. After eliminating similar expressions and evaluating the expressions in terms of the distinctive features of the target problem area, a form of 157 items were composed.
The prepared testing form of 157 items were presented to 100 people. The students in this group were asked to evaluate the paragraphs in terms of intelligibility and to choose one of the statements of “ölçüyor”, “ölçmüyor”, ”undecided”. After the frequency of the items have been tested, those with the frequency 50 and above were included in the study, which reduced the number of the items to 68
In the process of developing the scale, the items were given to 10 experts and they were asked to state their opinions. Taking the expert’s opinions and suggestions into consideration, necessary corrections were made and 6 items were left out reducing the number of the items to 62.
Item analysis was done by administering the testing scale on 200 people. At the end of the item analysis, one of the items was eliminated and the final number of the items were 61. 200 students studying at graduate post graduate programs at the Ondokuz Mayıs University were included in the study. Students of different fields were attempted to be included in the study. Their ages range between 18 and 30, average age is 21.78.
Findings: Findings regarding the Reliability of Perceived Emotional Abuse Scale
To determine the reliability of the scale, Crobbach Alfa internal reliability co-efficient and test-re-test stability co-efficient have been calculated. Internal reliability co-efficient has been measured through the data gathered from 200 students. Internal reliability co-efficient of the test is .95. To estimate the criterion-related validity, after a one-week interval, the test was conducted on 100 students from the group from which the data was obtained, and the correlation co-efficient (r=.76) between two administration of the test was measured.
It has been found out that correlation co-efficient of each item ranges between 30 and 69. This result is important in terms of the reliability of the scale.
Findings regarding the Validity of Perceived Emotional Abuse Scale
During the preparation of the scale of emotional abuse construct and content validity have been used. Opinions of 10 people holding a Doctorate Degree in the field of Psychological Counseling and Guidance and Psychiatry.
Construct validity of the scale has been estimated through factor analysis. It has been found out that Sampling Adequacy Co-efficient has been found out to be (KMO)=90. In order to examine the factor structure of the scale, varimax rotation has been conducted along with factor analysis, and factor weight of the items has been determined. The results of factor analysis show that scale has one factor.
Discussion: Obtaining the data concerning the validity and the reliability of the questionnaire in order for the emotional abuse scale to be used constitutes the main purpose of the study. Findings obtained after the validity and reliability studies of Emotional Abuse Perception For Adult Scale have shown that the scale can be reliable and valid to employ in order to determine the constraining perceptions that the adults have.
Reliability of the perceived emotional abuse scale has been measured via test-retest and internal consistency methods. Test-retest reliability, which was measured through the administration of the test twice with a two-week interval, has been found out to be r=.76. Internal consistency of the test is a=.95. Exploratory Factor Analysis was used for structural validity of perceived emotional abuse scale. The results of factor analysis show that scale has one factor. Applying the factorial structure of the scale on a relatively small size of the samples can be considered as a limitation. Further research can also be done to look at the information related to the variables such as gender and socio-cultural level perceived as an emotional abuse. Thus, the general evaluation of these findings recommends that the perceived emotional abuse scale is a reliable and valid scale for the researchers
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