1. Introduction

Teen dating violence is a relevant public health problem associated with a wide range of negative short-term and long-term physical and psychological outcomes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016). The presence of conflict and violence in these initial relationships are related to a higher risk of engaging in aggressive intimate partner relationships in adulthood (^{MorenoManso, Blázquez-Alonso, García-Baamonde, GuerreroBarona, & Pozueco-Romero, 2014}). However, adolescents’ romantic relationships differ from adult cohabiting and married intimate relationships (i.e., adolescents’ relationships tend to be more superficial, less committed, and of shorter duration) as well as in their relational patterns and expressions of violence, characterized for being moderate in severity and reciprocal (e.g ^{Knox, Lomonaco, & Alpert, 2009}). Also, it is crucial to understand that adolescents’ dating relational patterns are specific to the teenage generation of the digital era. That is, the use of the new technologies, in particular, has become part and parcel of adolescents’ and youth’s intimate relational style, even using the new technologies for perpetrating aggression toward the dating partner, especially for controlling purposes (^{David-Ferdon & Hertz, 2007}). The ^{Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014)} included the use of new technologies as a way of perpetration aggression on its definition: “Dating violence is defined as any psychological, physical, or sexual violence or stalking perpetrated by a current or former dating partner either in person or electronically.” However, the assessment of teen dating violence does not always meet this conceptualization. Besides, a very low percentage of those assessment tools provide a confirmatory study of the factor structure (^{López-Cepero, Rodríguez-Franco, & Rodríguez-Díaz, 2015}). Therefore, it is crucial to have valid and reliable assessment instruments that capture and accurately assess the specificity and complexity of teen dating violence.

Many of the measures used to assess teen dating violence were originally developed for adults (^{Smith et al., 2015}), including the most used scale called the Conflict Tactics Scale ([CTS] (^{Straus, 1979})Straus, 1979) and its different versions (e.g„ [CTS2] ^{Straus, Hamby, BoneyMcCoy, & Sugarman, 1996}; [M-CTS] ^{Muñoz-Rivas, Andreu, Graña, O’Leary, & Gonzalez, 2007}).

There are other instruments that were developed for the adolescent population. Nevertheless, some of them only measure victimization, and this does not allow us to capture the reciprocal patterns that characterize teen dating violence (^{Yanez-Peñúñuri, Hidalgo-Rasmussen, & Chávez-Flores, 2019}). There are six measures which were developed to assess both victimization and perpetration: the Safe Dates (^{Foshee et al., 1996}), the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationship Inventory ([CADRI] ^{Wolfe, Scott, Reitzel-Jaffe, Wekerle, & Grasley, 2001}), the Dating Violence Questionnaire ([CUVINO] Rodríguez-

Franco et al., 2010), the Dating Violence Questionnaire-R (^{Rodríguez-Díaz et al., 2017}), the Psychological Dating Violence Questionnaire ([PDV-Q] ^{Ureña, Romera, Casas, Viejo, & Ortega-Ruiz, 2015}), and the Violence in Adolescent’s Dating Relationships Inventory ([VADRI] ^{Aizpitarte et al., 2017}). Of these measures, in IberoAmerica, VADRI adequately captures all the violence expressions aligned with the conceptualization of the ^{Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014)}, as it includes several indicators related to sexual, physical, and psychological behaviors, including also those taking place with the aid of new technologies. Also, and to the best of our knowledge, VADRI is the only existing scale that was created in combining a cross-cultural and a qualitative approach for its creation (^{Yanez-Peñúñuri et al., 2019}). The VADRI demonstrated good psychometric properties in three different cultures and resulted in showing a unidimensional structure (^{Aizpitarte et al., 2017}). This unidimensional structure can be due to the small sample sizes used for its validation that could not be able to detect the multiple possible factors of the VADRI. Thus, the purpose of this study was to further explore VADRI’s factorial structure and other psychometric properties in a Mexican adolescent population big sample (i.e., over 1,000), carrying out a series of analyses using two different but equivalent samples in order to get a shorter but valid and reliable form to facilitate its application in the Mexican context.

2. Method

3. Results

3.1 Principal Component Analysis

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure confirmed that the sample size was adequate for the analyses (KMO = .92). Barlett’s test of sphericity showed that correlations between items were sufficiently large for carrying out the principal component analysis (χ ²(171) = 7.036.41, p = .000). Two items were removed because of their low communalities (less than .40), and five items were deleted due to the cross-loading criteria (values .32 on at least two factors). Therefore, a total of seven items were eliminated, and the resulting pool of 19 items was used for the subsequent analyses. The scree-plot and the eigenvalue criterion (eigenvalues over 1) suggested the presence of a three-factor solution. Thus, we conducted the subsequent analyses retaining three factors (i.e., the three-factors explained the 65.86% of the total variance). Factor 1 represents the more direct and severe behaviors of dating violence (i.e., sexual coercion, physical violence, and social humiliation). Factor 2 grouped all the controlling behaviors and isolation attempts toward the dating partner, including those behaviors displayed with the use of the new technologies. Lastly, factor 3 included several psychological violent behaviors related to verbal acts of discrediting the partner either in the partner’s presence or not. Based on the content of the items, we decided to name the three factors as it follows: 1) “Direct & severe”; 2) “Subtle psychological-controlling”; and, 3) “Overt psychological-verbal.” The variance explained for the different components were 48.95%, 12.07%, and 4.83%, respectively. Each item exhibited strong factor loadings, over .40 (^{Cabrera-Nguyen, 2010}). For more detailed information, see Table 1.

Table 1 Summary of the principal component analysis (N = 426) x 

Note: The asterisk (*) refers to the items modified for the VADRI-MX version for purposes of clarity and specificity for the target population

3.3 Reliability Analysis

Internal consistency was evaluated to confirm the sets of items were reflecting the dating violence construct reliably. Cronbach α (^{Cronbach, 1951}) coefficients were tested for each of the three components that composed the VADRI-MX. The Cronbach α were .92 and .94 for the total score of VADRI-MX, for perpetration and victimization, consecutively. Regarding the three factors, the α coefficients ranged between .81 and .93. More concretely, the indices for perpetration were .93, .93, and .82 for “direct & severe”, “subtle psychological-controlling”, and “overt psychological-verbal” consecutively; along with .87, .93, and .91 for victimization. All of them were above .80 as recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994), indicating very good internal consistency. All the reliability indices obtained in the original VADRI (i.e., Spaniard, Mexican, and Guatemalan sample, separately) were also high (above .90).

Figure 1 Second-order confirmatory factor analysis (N = 629). The first value refers to perpetration and the second to Victimization 

4. Discussion and conclusions

The three-factor structure was found in the exploratory factor analyses and confirmed through a subsequent confirmatory study (i.e., using two different but equivalent samples randomly selected). The second-order threefactor structure fit significantly better than the firstorder three-factor structure. Thus, our findings revealed the presence of an existing underlying “dating violence” construct of the VADRI-MX, composed of three firstorder factors which include a total of 19-items. Namely, a)“direct & severe” (6 items): indicators of sexual coercion, physical violence, and social humiliation; b) “subtle psychological-controlling” (8 items): controlling behaviors and isolation attempts toward the dating partner, including the ones using new technologies; and, c) “overt psychological-verbal” (5 items): indicators of verbal acts of spreading negative things about the partner and discrediting the partner either even if the partner is present or not.

The presence of the “subtle psychological-controlling” and the “overt psychological-verbal” factors are in accordance with the scientific literature about psychological violence. Psychological violent acts are defined as communication and interaction styles based on control and domination acts, and also denigration and criticism using verbal aggression (^{O’Leary & Slep, 2003}). In the same line, ^{Marshall (1999)} distinguished between subtle and overt ways of psychological abuse. The subtle psychological aggression is characterized by actions to controlling the dating partner, while the overt is mainly based on discrediting acts. This classification perfectly matches with the two of the three factors resulted in the factorial structure of the VADRI-MX: the one called “subtle psychological-controlling” (factor 2) and the “overt psychological-verbal” (factor 3). The most used assessment tools for adolescents (e.g., CADRI) capture several behaviors of psychological-emotional violence. However, our resultant two factors add to the dating violence measurement literature a clear distinction among two types of psychological violence: the subtlest type (i.e., completely characterized by controlling behaviors toward the dating partner) and a more overt type (i.e., related to several verbal acts aimed at hurting the partner or damaging the social image).

Regarding the controlling behaviors, which compose the “subtle psychological-controlling”, it is worth mentioning that they are not behaviors that are easily perceived by adolescents and youth as unhealthy or abusive. Even more, they can be misinterpreted by adolescents as a sign of love, affection, and interests toward the partner (^{Ayala, Molleda, Rodríguez-Franco, Galaz, & Díaz, 2014}). This view makes these behaviors an acceptable part of dating, making them more likely to appear and maintained along with the relationship. The controlling type of behaviors, together with the verbal ones, may precede or co-occur with the most overt and severe violent behaviors (^{Straus et al., 1996}). Besides, there is evidence pointing that the establishment of psychological violent patterns tend to be repeated along with future relationships (^{Lohman, Neppl, Senia, & Schofield, 2013}), considering them as possible predecessors of a more severe or direct type of violent behaviors (^{Moreno-Manso et al., 2014}).

Linked to the previous, and regarding the most severe violent behaviors, we also found a third single factor, composed of a combination of sexual, physical and social humiliation acts. Although the content of the behaviors within the factor is different (sexual, physical, and social content), what they have in common is that all of them may be considered as more direct and overt ways of violence, which may be easily recognized by adolescents as a clear expression of violence. This result may be suggesting the importance of considering some severe acts as a whole, where higher scores may be indicative of a high-risk relationship. In other words, it is more likely that the adolescents that experience sexual coercion will also be physically assaulted and may be experiencing social humiliation simultaneously.

Although the cross-sectional nature of the study did not allow us testing this prediction, we found that our first component, which includes the most severe and direct violent acts, was moderately associated with the two psychological factors. All in all, the apparition of the wide array of psychological violent may be considered as important risk factors for the apparition of other forms of severe violence, like physical violence. Thus, the indicators that composed the psychological factors of the VADRI-MX should be taken into special consideration for detecting the subtlest warning signs of dating violence (even those that take place in the aid of the new technologies) in order to reduce or stop the psychological violence and prevent the apparition of a more severe forms of violence.

The VADRI-MX showed to be a valid and reliable tool (i.e., Cronbach α indices of 82 to .94)It may be very useful for the detection of all type of dating violence behaviors, even the subtlest behaviors which may be crucial to stopping the violence cycle from continuing. Therefore, the inventory will be highly useful in different settings, such as educational, clinical and community contexts, and research. The three scores of VADRI-MX, ranging from the subtlest ones to the most direct and severe types of violence, would facilitate the detection of groups in which dating violence is more salient. This type of information may become especially important in school settings, because it would allow school agents to make decisions about implementing primary prevention programs or/and secondary prevention in highrisk groups (e.g., this would be of particular interest when we detect the presence of the violent behaviors that composed “direct & severe” component of dating violence). It will also be very helpful for practitioners and therapists when dealing with teen and young couples because it gives them information about the presence of different type of violent behaviors. This information, as well as the item-level information, would be of interest for both individual and couple therapy intervention. VADRI-MX has the strength of measuring the unidirectionality or reciprocity of the violent acts, allowing the therapist to get crucial information for applying specific strategies depending on the one-directional or mutual nature dynamics. Finally, researchers may use the VADRI-MX for several purposes: a) to examine the relationship of dating violence with several risks and protective factors; b) to examine typologies of teen dating violence; c) to analyze how the different violent behaviors are interrelated, as well as how they co-develop over time and/or along time or how may precede other more severe types of violence.

However, there are some limitations that merit attention: The sole use of self-reports for assessing dating violence, especially because of the effect that social desirability can have in the answers. The sample size for the CFA was not large enough to test the factorial structure for females and males separately. Also, regarding the concurrent correlation, we correlated the two forms of the original VADRI and the new VADRI-MX from one administration. Finally, the instrument does not consider the intent to use violence as self-defense.

Future studies should further analyze whether the three-factorial structure is maintained in different adolescent and youth populations (both clinical settings and the general population) and different cultural groups. Longitudinal analyses should be conducted to test whether the apparition of controlling and verbally abusive acts of VADRI-MX may precede the most direct and severe acts. The VADRI-MX should be implemented combined with qualitative methodology in order to better comprehend the complexity of the relationship dynamic.