Abstract
Recent interest in the construct of motivation to change among male perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) has led to development of two self-report measures of this construct: the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment for Domestic Violence (URICA-DV; Levesque et al. 2000) and the Safe at Home Inventory (SAH; Begun et al. 2003). We examined the internal structure of these instruments using confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses in a sample of 199 male IPV perpetrators waiting to begin court-mandated batterer intervention programs. Results indicated that the scales had adequate internal consistency. However, using confirmatory factor analyses, the hypothesized structural models of each instrument fit the data poorly. Subsequent models suggested by a series of exploratory factor analyses failed to improve model fit substantially for both scales. For the URICA-DV, a 3-factor model including items from the Precontemplation, Contemplation, and Action subscales fit the data adequately. No acceptable model fit could be found for the SAH. Intercorrelations among similar subscales across the two inventories suggested only a modest degree of intercorrelation (r’s = 0.16–0.52), and a factor structure more dependent on scale of origin than item latent content, suggesting that the scales assess different facets of the readiness to change construct. These results suggest that before the stages of change construct can be fully applied to the IPV area, more research and evaluation are needed on how to accurately assess abuser readiness to change.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported in part by grant 99-WT-VX-0012 from the National Institute of Justice awarded to the first author.
The authors wish to thank Melissa Cahill, Judge David Finn, Ron R. Goethals, Mike Hurlburt, Bernie Auchter, Bradley Norlander, Ashley Sibley, Ifeoluwa Togun, Elizabeth Franks, Liv Sharp, Kevin Impelman, Lauren Innes, Anna Brandon, and the Stages of Change Project interviewers. Portions of this research were presented at the 112th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI.
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Eckhardt, C.I., Utschig, A.C. Assessing Readiness to Change among Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence: Analysis of Two Self-report Measures. J Fam Viol 22, 319–330 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9088-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9088-9