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The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and Preliminary Psychometric Data

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Abstract

This article describes a revised Conflict Tactics Scales (the CTS2) to measure psychological and physical attacks on a partner in a marital, cohabiting, or dating relationship; and also use of negotiation. The CTS2 has (a) additional items to enhance content validity and reliability; (b) revised wording to increase clarity and specificity; (c) better differentiation between minor and severe levels of each scale; (d) new scales to measure sexual coercion and physical injury; and (e) a new format to simplify administration and reduce response sets. Reliability ranges from .79 to .95. There is preliminary evidence of construct validity.
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Journal of Family Issues
DOI: 10.1177/019251396017003001
1996; 17; 283 Journal of Family Issues
DAVID B. SUGARMAN
MURRAY A. STRAUS, SHERRY L. HAMBY, SUE BONEY-McCOY and
Preliminary Psychometric Data
The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and
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... Neglect was not included in the definition of childhood maltreatment because participating studies either did not assess physical and emotional neglect (n = 6) or assessed them in discrepant manners. Specific measures and criteria used to code childhood maltreatment (absent vs. present) in each study are described in Additional file 1: Table S1 [35][36][37][38]. ...
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Background Childhood maltreatment is associated with depression and cardiometabolic disease in adulthood. However, the relationships with these two diseases have so far only been evaluated in different samples and with different methodology. Thus, it remains unknown how the effect sizes magnitudes for depression and cardiometabolic disease compare with each other and whether childhood maltreatment is especially associated with the co-occurrence (“comorbidity”) of depression and cardiometabolic disease. This pooled analysis examined the association of childhood maltreatment with depression, cardiometabolic disease, and their comorbidity in adulthood. Methods We carried out an individual participant data meta-analysis on 13 international observational studies (N = 217,929). Childhood maltreatment comprised self-reports of physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse before 18 years. Presence of depression was established with clinical interviews or validated symptom scales and presence of cardiometabolic disease with self-reported diagnoses. In included studies, binomial and multinomial logistic regressions estimated sociodemographic-adjusted associations of childhood maltreatment with depression, cardiometabolic disease, and their comorbidity. We then additionally adjusted these associations for lifestyle factors (smoking status, alcohol consumption, and physical activity). Finally, random-effects models were used to pool these estimates across studies and examined differences in associations across sex and maltreatment types. Results Childhood maltreatment was associated with progressively higher odds of cardiometabolic disease without depression (OR [95% CI] = 1.27 [1.18; 1.37]), depression without cardiometabolic disease (OR [95% CI] = 2.68 [2.39; 3.00]), and comorbidity between both conditions (OR [95% CI] = 3.04 [2.51; 3.68]) in adulthood. Post hoc analyses showed that the association with comorbidity was stronger than with either disease alone, and the association with depression was stronger than with cardiometabolic disease. Associations remained significant after additionally adjusting for lifestyle factors, and were present in both males and females, and for all maltreatment types. Conclusions This meta-analysis revealed that adults with a history of childhood maltreatment suffer more often from depression and cardiometabolic disease than their non-exposed peers. These adults are also three times more likely to have comorbid depression and cardiometabolic disease. Childhood maltreatment may therefore be a clinically relevant indicator connecting poor mental and somatic health. Future research should investigate the potential benefits of early intervention in individuals with a history of maltreatment on their distal mental and somatic health (PROSPERO CRD42021239288).
... While further validation of existing measures would be beneficial and recommended, the instruments detailed here may be useful to enhance assessments of trauma history and its impact in psychosis patients. PSYCHOSIS (Bernstein et al., 2003); Chinese translation (Zhao et al., 2005); Dutch translation (Thombs et al., 2009); Korean version (Kim et al., 2011) Historical childhood trauma Self-rated Five scales (28) The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) (Straus et al., 1996) Intra-family violence since age 16 ...
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Traumatic events play a key role in the development and course of psychosis. Psychotic symptoms themselves and coercive treatment practices can be inherently traumatic. Hence, reliable and valid methods of assessing trauma and its impact (i.e., Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomology) are essential for use with people with psychosis. Many measures are available to select from, but this is the first review to appraise the psychometric properties of trauma measures to guide decision making regarding instrument use. The review was prospectively registered on Prospero (CRD42022306100). Evaluation of methodological and psychometric quality followed Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) guidance. Twenty-four articles were eligible, with sixteen trauma measures evaluated. Childhood Trauma Questionnaire- Short Form demonstrated the most robust evidence for assessing experience of trauma. The Trauma and Life Experience (TALE) checklist was the only measure to include specific psychosis and iatrogenic harm items. For PTSD measures, the Symptoms of Trauma Scale and PTSD Symptom Scale– Self Report had the highest quality evidence. Psychometric strengths and weaknesses of various trauma measures are comprehensively evaluated, highlighting future research directions to strengthen the evidence base with emphasis on further evaluation of the TALE, which integrates trauma specific to psychosis.
... self-reports of moderate and severe spousal violence. The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS;Straus et al., 1996) was used to measure self-reports of behaviours exhibited in marital conflict. Against comparable civilian national weighted survey data adjusted for race and age,Heyman and Neidig (1999) prevalence of IPV was consistently higher in military groups. ...
... In addition, individuals also completed the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) domestic violence module which captures four distinct domains of IPV: controlling behavior and emotional, sexual, and physical IPV [37]. This tool is a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale and asks respondents if they have experienced 15 separate behaviorally-specific types of IPV [38]. In our prior work, we noted discrepancies between reports of physical and sexual violence on the DHS domestic violence module and the modified version of the Life Events Checklist for DSM-5 used in the assessment of lifetime PTEs in this analysis [39]. ...
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... For the purposes of partner classification, IPV was determined using the revised conflict tactics scale [CTS2; (48)]. The CTS2 is 39-item Frontiers in Psychiatry 04 frontiersin.org ...
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Introduction Intimate partner violence is a serious public health problem that costs the United States more than $4.1 billion in direct medical and mental health costs alone. Furthermore, alcohol use contributes to more frequent and more severe intimate partner violence incidents. Compounding this problem is treatments for intimate partner violence have largely been socially informed and demonstrate poor efficacy. We argue that improvements in intimate partner treatment will be gained through systematic scientific study of mechanisms through which alcohol is related to intimate partner violence. We hypothesize that poor emotional and behavioral regulation as indexed by the respiratory sinus arrythymia measure of heart rate variability is a key mechanism between alcohol use and intimate partner violence. Method The present study is a placebo-controlled alcohol administration study with an emotion-regulation task that investigated heart rate variability in distressed violent and distressed nonviolent partners. Results We found a main effect for alcohol on heart rate variability. We also found a four-way interaction whereby distressed violent partners exhibited significant reductions in heart rate variability when acutely intoxicated and attempting to not respond to their partners evocative stimuli. Discussion These findings suggest that distressed violent partners may adopt maladaptive emotion regulation strategies such as rumination and suppression when intoxicated and attempting to not respond to partner conflict. Such strategies of emotion regulation have been shown to have many deleterious emotional, cognitive and social consequences for individuals who adopt them, possibly including intimate partner violence. These findings also highlight an important novel treatment target for intimate partner violence and suggest that novel treatments should focus on teaching effective conflict resolution and emotion-regulation strategies that may be augmented by biobehavioral treatments such as heart rate variability biofeedback.
... Indeed, many IPV survivors state after the fact that they would have reported abuse if they had been asked (Chang et al. 2005;Phelan 2007). Several IPV screening tools have been well-validated for the detection of physical, sexual, or psychological trauma in general practice settings but were not explicitly designed to detect BI; these included the Extended-Hurt/Insult/Threaten/Scream (E-HITS; Sherin et al. 1998), the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2; Straus et al. 1996), the Index of Spouse Abuse-Physical (ISA-P; Hudson 1992), the Partner Violence Screen (PVS; Feldhaus et al. 1997), and the Women Abuse Screening Tool (WAST; Brown et al. 1996). Fewer measures exist that are specific to IPV-related BI. ...
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