Testing an Intimate Partner Violence Assessment Icon Form with Battered Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Women

SUMMARY

A user-friendly assessment form using icons was developed for the Lideres Campesinas de California, Inc., a women farmworker organization in California, for assessing migrant and seasonal farmworker women for abuse. The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of the form. Twenty-five women from the Lideres participated. The form, called the Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Assessment Icon Form, was designed to be used with literate, semi-literate, and illiterate women. Inter-rater reliability and criterion-related validity of the IPV Assessment Form were found to be adequate for the literate and semi-literate participants. There were not enough illiterate women (n = 2) to include in the analysis. This study also demonstrates that with adequate training, support, and tools, migrant and seasonal farmworker women can work in partnership with researchers to design, develop and conduct research in their own communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestic violence
• intimate partner violence
• migrant farmworkers
• reliability testing
• validity testing
• literacy