Abstract

Dating violence (DV) is considered an important phenomenon which causes various psychological and physical problems amongst young couples. One of the most widely-used measures of DV is the Dating Violence Questionnaire (DVQ), and recently, a revised brief version of the DVQ(DVQ-R) has been developed for widespread use. This study examined the validity of the DVQ-R in 300 Korean young adults who had been engaged in romantic relationships. Participants completed the DVQ-R, as well as other measures that assess physical/sexual violence in intimate relationships, depression, and anxiety. Results of confirmatory factor analysis supported a five-factor structure of the Korean version DVQ-R, and the internal consistency of the measure was satisfactory. The effect size for the difference between sexual violence victimization scores for this study's participants, and those of another study's Spanish adolescents and young adults was relatively large. Female participants in this study reported more sexual violence victimization than male participants, whereas male participants reported more physical violence victimization than female participants. The effect of age on the DVQ-R was not significant, and the criterion validity and convergent validity of the measure were satisfactory. These findings suggest that the Korean version of the DVQ-R is a reliable and valid measure for the assessment of DV in young Korean couples.