Current Problems of Psychiatry

Aim. The aim of this study was to adapt the Women's Experience With Battering Scale (WEB) to Polish conditions, as well as to as-sess psychometric properties of the Scale. The WEB Scale measures emotional abuse, perceived exposure to physical or psychological violence, a sense of loss of power and control and feelings of humiliation, isolation and helplessness experienced in the intimate rela-tionship.

Method. The adaptation procedure included the assessment of:

1) translation accuracy through the translation-retranslation procedure and the degree of comprehensibility of words and sen-tences,

2) face equivalence defined as the layout of the test, the number, sequence and format of questions, the number and wording of question categories, instructions and examples, calculation of scores,

3) psychometric equivalence assessed by the test reliability defined as its stability and internal consistency.

Materials. The study with the use of the Polish WEB Scale version was conducted among 200 female patients (mean age = 43.34, SD = 12.08, age range = 19-78) provided with primary care in six primary health care centres in Biłogoraj and Janów counties in Lublin Province.

Results. One hundred-and-two patients (51%) had scores that indicated experiencing violence or exposure to it. The Polish ver-sion of the WEB Scale proved to be a tool of high internal consistency (α Cronbach = 0.98), satisfying temporal stability (Pearson's r = 0.988) and short performance time (<10 minutes).

Conclusions.

Satisfying psychometric properties of the Polish WEB version qualify this screening scale as a trustworthy tool both in everyday medical practice and in scientific research on violence women experience in their intimate relationships.

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Streszczenie

Cel. Celem pracy była adaptacja do warunków polskich oraz ocena własności psychometrycznych Skali Doświadczeń Maltretowa-nych Kobiet (WEB), mierzącej przemoc psychiczną, poczucie zagrożenia przemocą fizyczną lub psychiczną, poczucie utraty kontroli i władzy w związku, poczucie upokorzenia, izolacji, bezsilności.