title: Accuracy of an intimate partner violence screening tool for female VHA patients: a replication and extension.
abstract: The 4-item Hurt/Insult/Threaten/Scream (HITS) tool accurately detects past-year intimate partner violence (IPV) among female Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients; however, it lacks a sexual IPV item. This study evaluated the accuracy of an extended HITS (E-HITS), which adds a sexual IPV item, in female VHA patients. A sample of 80 female U.S. veteran VHA patients in New England completed a mail survey (50.0% response rate) that included the 5-item E-HITS and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS-2). Women were included if they were in an intimate relationship in the past year. The women averaged 49 years of age and 86.0% of the sample was White. Accuracy of the 4-item HITS was compared to the 5-item E-HITS, using the CTS-2 as the reference. There were 20 women (25.0%) who reported past-year IPV on the CTS-2. The receiver operator characteristic curves demonstrated that the HITS and E-HITS performed nearly identically at their optimal cutoff scores of 6 and 7, respectively. At these cutoff scores, the sensitivity of both tools was .75, 95% CI [.55, .95]. The specificities were similar; .83 for the HITS, 95% CI [.73, .92], and .82 for the E-HITS, 95% CI [.72, .90]. Including a sexual IPV item may be clinically beneficial; it also attains the same accuracy of case identification as the HITS.
authors.affiliation: National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Iverson
authors.forename: Matthew W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Megan R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Gerber
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Resick
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kimerling
authors.forename: Amy E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Street
authors.forename: Dawne
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vogt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000066511:Intimate Partner Violence; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs; D014728:Veterans