Development of preparedness to respond to intimate partner violence scale among mental health professionals

OBJECTIVES: Violence against women has been associated with serious health and mental health consequences. Health-care professionals play an important role in screening and providing care and support to victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the hospital setting. There is no culturally relevant tool to assess the mental health professional (MHP) preparedness to screen for partner violence in the clinical setting. This research aimed towards developing and standardizing scale to measure MHP preparedness and perceived skills in responding to IPV in the clinical setting. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The scale was field tested with 200 subjects using consecutive sampling at a tertiary care hospital. RESULTS: The exploratory factor analysis resulted in five factors constituting 59.2% of the total variance. The internal consistency Cronbach alpha 0.72 for the final 32-item scale was highly reliable and adequate. CONCLUSION: The final version of the Preparedness to Respond to IPV (PR-IPV) scale measures MHP PR-IPV in the clinical setting. Further, the scale can be used to evaluate the outcome of IPV interventions in different settings.