Analysis of women's response and situation for items of the violence against women screen in prenatal settings

Abstract

The Violence Against Women Screen (VAWS) is a Japanese screening tool for intimate partner violence. In order to revise the VAWS to be more accurate and applicable for clinical settings, we conducted an interview with postpartum women screened for IPV during pregnancy to clarify women's response and its situation for VAWS items. MethodsFive new items inquiring about psychological violence were added to the seven items in the original VAWS. A total of 43 postpartum women who answered the 12-item VAWS during pregnancy were asked their response and its situation of the VAWS question items by semi-structured interview. The data was analyzed using content analysis. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of St. Luke's College of Nursing (Approval No. 11-039). ResultsParticipants expressed a variety of perceptions concerning question items on psychological violence. For the question "Is it difficult to settle arguments by talking?", replies consisted of 2 categories: [Get into a quarrel] and [Lack of conversation]. The concept of "talking" included both one-way and two-way conversation depending on context. The psychological violence questions "Has he yelled at you?", "Do you feel safe?", "Do you feel controlled by your partner?" and "Does he have no respect for your feelings?" consisted of more than three categories of answers, including perceptions that researchers did not intend. In addition, some of the psychological violence questions had response categories [Chose wrong options] and [Felt hesitant about which option to choose]. On the other hand, for two psychological violence questions: "Have you felt afraid?" and "Has your partner thrown or punched things?", and for the physical violence and sexual violence questions, participants' perceptions were most consistent. ConclusionVarious perceptions were expressed by participants concerning psychological violence questions. In accordance with our quantitative data analysis, the VAWS requires further revision to make it an accurate and applicable tool to screen IPV.