Overview

The Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus 1979, 1990) measures the extent to which partners in a relationship engage in concrete acts and events of psychological, physical, or sexual attacks on each other; the consequences of the attacks; and partners’ use of reasoning or negotiation to deal with conflicts. The most frequent application has been to obtain data on physical assaults on a partner (Straus 1996).

This is measured through five scales:

• Physical Assault scale
• Psychological Aggression scale
• Negotiation scale
• Injury scale
• Sexual Coercion scale

Scoring and Interpretation

For each scale, responses are re-coded dichotomously: 1 = yes and 0 = no. The incidence of physical violence is calculated by summing the four binary indicators, with maximum and minimum values of 4 and 0, respectively. These estimated scores are then re-coded as binary variables with the categories “no” and “yes.” Individuals who scored 0 are categorized as having “not experienced intimate partner violence (IPV),” and those who scored above 1 as “experienced IPV.” The incidence of sexual violence is calculated on a women’s positive response to a question asking whether she has ever been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when she did not want to.

Citation

Straus, Murray A., Hamby, Sherry L., Boney-Mccoy, Sue and David B. Sugarman. 1996. “The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Preliminary Psychometric Data.” Journal of Family Issues 1996; 17(3): 283-316.

Straus, Murray A. 1979. “Measuring Intrafamily Conflict and Violence: The Conflict Tactics (CT) Scales.” Journal of Marriage and Family 41(1): 75–88.

Context and Applications to Child Nutrition

Bangladesh
Ziaei, Shirin, Ruchira Tabassum Naved, and Eva‐Charlotte Ekström. 2014. "Women's Exposure To Intimate Partner Violence and Child Malnutrition: Findings From Demographic and Health Surveys in Bangladesh." Maternal & Child Nutrition 10(3): 347-359.

Brazil
Mezzavilla, Raquel de Souza, Gabriela Vasconcellos de Barros Vianna, Ana Cristina Lindsay, and Maria Helena Hasselmann. 2021. "Intimate Partner Violence, Breastfeeding, Breastmilk Substitutes and Baby Bottle Use in the First Year of Life." Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 26 (5): 1955-1964.

Nepal
Chowdhury, Mohammad Rocky Khan, Md Mobarak Hossain Khan, Hafiz TA Khan, Md Shafiur Rahman, Md Rashedul Islam, Md Moinul Islam, and Baki Billah. 2020. "Prevalence and Risk Factors of Childhood Anemia in Nepal: A Multilevel Analysis." PLoS ONE 15(10): e0239409.

Adaptations

N/A

Formative Research

Pretested