Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire : Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance among Portuguese male perpetrators of intimate partner violence

Abstract

This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). The study was also supported by Grant SFRH/ BD/66110/2009 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology awarded to the first author.The current study aimed to analyze the fit of the four-factor model of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) 29-item and the 12-item on a sample of Portuguese male perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV; N = 279) and to test the measurement invariance between sample type (forensic and non-forensic) and sentence type (prison and community). Confirmatory factor analysis did not support the four-factor model of the BPAQ 29-item version. The four-factor model of the BPAQ short form (BPAQ-SF) showed a good fit. Sufferable values for internal consistency and good values for convergent and discriminant validity were found. Cross-sentence measurement invariance using the present sample and cross-sample measurement invariance of the BPAQ-SF using a previously collected sample of students was established. Overall, our results support BPAQ-SF as a valuable brief and psychometrically reliable measure of aggression for use with both individuals from the community and IPV perpetrators with different sentences. Keywords: Aggression; Factorial structure; Intimate partner violence; Measurement invariance; Psychometric properties