[Scale of psychological violence against adolescents].
OBJECTIVE
To present strategies and results of a cross-cultural adaptation of a psychological violence scale to be used in Brazilian studies.


METHODS
The scale of violence, a translated version in Portuguese of the original in English, was applied to a sample of 266 7th and 8th grade and junior high school students of public and private schools of the municipality of São Gonçalo, Southeastern Brazil. Several types of equivalences were investigated. The semantic equivalence was evaluated in the referential and general meaning of each item. The measurement equivalence was assessed through psychometric properties such as test and retest reliability, construct validity, internal consistency and factorial analysis. Reliability was measured by Kappa and intraclass correlation coefficients and construct validity was evaluated by Pearson's coefficient.


RESULTS
The theoretical-conceptual discussions were deemed adequate concerning conceptual and items equivalences. The semantic equivalence was above 60 percentile in the evaluation of the referential and general item meaning. Cronbach's alpha was 0.94, Kappa index agreement was discreet, intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.82 and the factorial analysis with one factor structure had a degree of explanation of 43.5% variance. Construct validity showed significant negative correlation with self-esteem, social support, and a positive correlation with parent violence.


CONCLUSIONS
The study results indicate the applicability of the instrument in the Brazilian teenager population.
Avanci
Joviana Q
JQ
Instituto Fernandes Figueira, Fundação Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. joviana@claves.fiocruz.br
Assis
Simone G
SG
Santos
Nilton César dos
NC
Oliveira
Rachel V C
RV
D000293:Adolescent; D001938:Brazil; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012660:Semantics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014175:Translating