Validation of the Abuse Screening Inventory (ASI).
OBJECTIVE
To assess the test-retest reliability and concurrent validity of the Abuse Screening Inventory (ASI) in a female sample.


METHODS
The ASI comprises 16 items concerning four kinds of abuse: psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, and abuse in healthcare. A randomized sample of 699 women answered the ASI once. Six months later 53 of them answered the ASI again and were interviewed. To assess concurrent validity, answers in the interviews were considered as the gold standard and the ASI as the diagnostic test.


RESULTS
The ASI presented good overall test-retest reliability ranging from 81% to 96% for separate items. The ASI separated very well abused from non-abused women. No false positive answers were found. Sensitivity ranged from 72% to 82% for items concerning abuse.


CONCLUSIONS
The ASI is a short abuse screening questionnaire that had acceptable validity and test-retest reliability in a random female Swedish sample.
Swahnberg
Katarina
K
Division of Gender and Medicine, University of Linköping, Linköping, Sweden.
Wijma
Klaas
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D018585:Battered Women; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology