Psychometric Assessment of the Burgess-Partner Abuse Scale for Teens (B-PAST)

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Burgess-Partner Abuse Scale for Teens (B-PAST) by examining internal consistency and construct validity.

Methods. A convenience sample of 239 teen girls ages 13 to 19 years old that were seen in three private primary health care practices agreed to participate. Subjects were administered two measures of interpersonal violence, two measures of psychosocial well-being, and a demographic questionnaire. Construct validity was assessed by 1) conducting exploratory factor analysis with a priori decision to retain two factors, and 2) measuring differential correlates of interpersonal violence and psychosocial well-being using Pearson correlation. In order to determine the instrument's ability to discriminate between teen girls who reported partner abuse and those who did not report partner abuse, differences in contrasted group means (abused vs. non-abused) were examined. One-way ANOVA was used to determine differences in interpersonal violence and psychosocial wellbeing. The internal consistency of the B-PAST was examined by setting a criterion for the alpha coefficient above .70.

Results. The results showed that 70.9% of the variance was explained by the B-PAST. Factor analysis demonstrated a 22-item scale with two distinct subscales. The B-PAST correlated with one measure of interpersonal peer violence (r = .39) and two measures of poor psychosocial well-being, low level of hope and increased depression (r = -.42, r = .46). Differences in contrasted means showed that teen girls who were abused by a partner reported higher scores for interpersonal violence. One-way ANOVA showed that abused teen girls scored higher for interpersonal violence and depression but lower in hope. The internal consistency for the final total scale was .97 and .95 for physical/sexual abuse and .91 for the social/emotional abuse subscales.

Conclusions. Results provide support for reliability and validity for the BPAST as a measure of partner abuse in teen girls ages 13 to 19.