Development and validation of a scale to measure exposure to violence in mexican adolescents: exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis

Abstract

In Mexico, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Computing; INEGI, 2014) reported that 30.9% of the houses had at least one victim of violence. The Global Peace Index (2013; 2015) ranked Mexico in the 131st place in 2014 and then in the 144th place in 2015 out of 161 countries.1 proposed that living in violent communities is harmful, especially for children and adolescents. Describe that the exposure to violence is not only experienced by the victim when there is a direct exposure but can also be experienced by an observer; an indirect exposure.2 The indirect exposure can occur when one is a witness or simply by being informed of the violence experienced by others, which is also supported.3 Violence exposure rates from direct victims of violence in different populations range between 20% and 50%. Furthermore, 30% to 95% of people reported being exposed to indirect violence.4‒8 Adolescents exposed to high levels of violence show emotional numbing (less distress) and anxiety symptoms that worsen with violence exposure.9 suggest that witnessed violence could affect perception, behavior, emotions and physique.10 found that community violence has a “decidedly larger and more significant effect” (p. 329) on the aggression reported two years later.11 propose that witnessed or experienced violence “increases the risk of running away from home, leaving school, pregnancy, suicidal attempts, and having contact with the criminal justice system during adolescence” (p. 2).12 Exposure to violence is related to violent behavior, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, self‒esteem, aggression, transgression, and constant exposure could make violence seem as acceptable, expected or normal. All of these consequences may be related to the proximity or closeness to the aggressor, duration of the exposure, social norms, and values.12‒16 There are some instruments measuring some aspects of violence. Proposed the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationship Inventory (CADRI).17 developed the Index of Spouse Abuse, which measured both the physical and non‒physical aspects and,18 behavioral control. It was validated with the Scale of Sexual Assertiveness, and its alpha reliability ranges between 0.60 and 0.81. proposed the Questionnaire of Violence between Couples with 5170 people participants in Spain, Argentina and Mexico.19 The questionnaire has eight factors, labeled as types of abuse: emotional punishment, coercion, detachment, physical, gender, humiliation, instrumental and sexual. The model explains 51.3% of variance and it reported alphas between 0.58 and 0.81. This questionnaire includes physical, psychological and sexual components of violence. Reported the Out‒group Threat Perception Scale’s validity and reliability coefficients.20 presented the Exposure to Insecurity and Violence Questionnaire for Adolescents, developed in Mexico to measure mild to severe violence.21 although the questionnaire has good psychometric properties, no data on the factor structure is provided. Finally,22 developed and validated the Exposure to Violence Questionnaire for children and adolescents. It involved 1986 schoolchildren from 16 educational centers in Biscay, Spain. The questionnaire consists of 21 items, 9 regarding direct exposure or victimization and 12 related to indirect exposure. The items refer to three types of violence‒physical, verbal and threats‒in four contexts: school, neighborhood, home and TV. This instrument was used to asses EVS’s concurrent validity since the theme, theoretical framework, population, type of response and sampling methods are similar to the ones used here.