Page Last Updated: May 14, 2026

CABr-SFđź”—

Composite Abuse Scale Revised - Short Form

Table Namesed_cg_cabr_sf
ConstructIntimate Partner Violence
Study VisitsV04, V06
Administration Child-specific: No
Respondent: Birth Parent or Primary Caregiver
Method: Self-administered in person in a private setting (2 min estimated duration)
Quality Control Scoring verification, data consistency checks, and checks for missingness.
Data Warning â–¸

Users should not attempt to create their own summary scores when less than 11 items are answered. Please refer to Ford-Gilboe et al. 2016 for scoring guidance.

Please review the Known Issues & Pending Updates page for updates that may affect data use.

Instrument Detailsđź”—

The CABr-SF is a 15-item scale indexing lifetime and current experiences and frequency (in the past 12 months) with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. It is participant self-administered and administered in a private setting away from any additional adults who may have accompanied the participant to the visit.

HBCD Modification Details â–¸

General
Language was updated to use gender-neutral terminology in the definition of intimate partner in the methods section (e.g.,"Current or former husband, partner or boyfriend/girlfriend" was replaced with "spouse, partner, significant other"). Researcher should consider noting this in publications using this data.

Response Option Changes
“Don’t know” and “Decline to answer” were added as response options for HBCD.

Scoring Procedures â–¸

The CABr-SF has 16 questions. Question 1 is a gateway ("Have you ever been in an intimate relationship?"). Questions 2–16 (15 items) are abuse experience items. The summary score is computed as the mean of the abuse experience responses (questions 2-16), multiplied by 15; summary scores are only calculated if participants responded to at least 11 of the 15 abuse experience items. Note that in the updated scoring procedures, "Don’t Know" and "Decline to answer" are regarded as missing or non-responses.

Referencesđź”—

Ford-Gilboe, M., Wathen, C. N., Varcoe, C., MacMillan, H. L., Scott-Storey, K., Mantler, T., Hegarty, K., & Perrin, N. (2016). Development of a brief measure of intimate partner violence experiences: the Composite Abuse Scale (Revised)-Short Form (CASR-SF). BMJ Open, 6(12), e012824. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012824