Page Last Updated: May 15, 2026

Partner Dynamics Extended (eHITS)🔗

Partner Dynamics Extended – Hurt, Insult, Threaten, Scream

Table Name	`sed_bm_ehits`
Construct	Intimate Partner Violence
Study Visits	V01
Administration	Child-specific: No Respondent: Parent Method: HBCD Study staff in-person (2 min estimated duration)
Quality Control	Data dashboard monitored for variable missingness, possible coding errors, scoring verification, and data consistency.

Instrument Details🔗

The eHITS is a self-administered 5 question Likert scale screener for experiences of psychological aggression, physical assault, sexual coercion, and injury. Originally created for quick administration in a health care setting or emergency department, the eHITS asks individuals to indicate whether their partner has done any of the following over the past 12 months: "physically hurt you", "insulted you", "threatened to harm you", "screamed or cursed at you", or "forced you to have sexual activities."

Various research groups made minor word changes. Sherin and colleagues developed the original instrument, HITS, published in 1998. Chan and colleagues expanded HITS to include a question regarding forced sexual activity Chan et al. 2010. To acknowledge these changes in future publications, we recommend including the exact verbiage of the HBCD-version of the item in the methods section of any reports, presentations, and manuscripts.

Instruction/Assessment Item Modifications
The following outlines the differences in the wording and/or content of questions asked in the prior iterations of eHITS compared to HBCD.

SHERIN ET AL. 1998	CHAN ET AL. 2010	HBCD 2024
How often does your partner... preceding text for following rows	Has your partner ever... preceding text for following rows	In the previous 12 months, how often has your current partner... preceding text for following rows
...physically hurt you?	...physically hurt you in the past 12 months?	...physically hurt you?
...insult you or talk down to you?	...insulted you in the past 12 months?	...insulted you?
...threaten you with harm?	...threatened to harm you in the past 12 months?	...threatened you?
...scream or curse at you?	...screamed or cursed at you in the past 12 months?	...screamed or cursed at you?
	...forced you to have sexual activities in the past 12 months?	...forced you to engage in sexual activity?

Answer/Response Option Changes

SHERIN ET AL. 1998	CHAN ET AL. 2010	HBCD 2024
1 - Never 2 - Rarely 3 - Sometimes 4 -Fairly often 5 - Frequently	1 - Never 2 - Rarely 3 - Sometimes 4 - Fairly often 5 - Frequently	0 - Never 1 - Rarely 2 - Seldom 3 - Very often 4 - Frequently NA, Don't know, or Decline to answer

The eHITS summary score (sum of item ratings) is used clinically as a screening tool for intimate partner violence (IPV) based on a certain threshold. For HBCD, a clinical alert for IPV is triggered when the summary score is greater than 7 and/or the scores for “…physically hurt you?” or “…forced you to engage in sexual activity?” is greater than 0. If a respondent selects “Don’t know” for one or more questions, a clinical alert may not generate for a participant whose correct responses would result in a score sufficient to trigger an alert.

SHERIN ET AL. 1998	CHAN ET AL. 2010	HBCD 2024
Score range: 4 - 20	Score range: 5 - 25	Score range: 0 - 20
Summary score > 10.5 for IPV	Summary score > 8.5 for IPV	Summary score > 3.5 for IPV

References🔗

Chan, C. C., Chan, Y. C., Au, A., & Cheung, G. O. C. (2010). Reliability and validity of the “Extended - Hurt, Insult, Threaten, Scream” (E-hits) screening tool in detecting intimate partner violence in hospital emergency departments in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine, 17(2), 109–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/102490791001700202

Portnoy, G. A., Haskell, S. G., King, M. W., Maskin, R., Gerber, M. R., & Iverson, K. M. (2018). Accuracy and acceptability of a screening tool for identifying intimate partner violence perpetration among women veterans: A pre-implementation evaluation. Women’s Health Issues: Official Publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2018.04.003

Sherin, K. M., Sinacore, J. M., Li, X. Q., Zitter, R. E., & Shakil, A. (1998). HITS: a short domestic violence screening tool for use in a family practice setting. Family Medicine, 30(7), 508–512. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9669164