Title: Investigating Non-invariance of Psychological Intimate Partner Violence Measures in the
Demographic and Health Surveys: Roles of Survey Design and National Context in 19 Countries
Version: 1 Date: 21 Apr 2025
Reviewer:  Raeann E. Anderson
Reviewer's report:
Overview: This study used advanced, state of the art quantitative methods to examine whether
the measures of psychological IPV truly measure the same construct across countries in USAID
Demographic and Health Surveys. Strengths: interesting and important research question,
appropriate and advanced statistical techniques. Relative weaknesses: limited background and
contextual information
My main suggestion is to consider choosing a different title and slightly revising the article with
a different tone/theme in mind.
My read of the Introduction/Background is that the authors do NOT think there will be
measurement invariance given their prior research using this dataset. Rather, the new idea/big
contribution of this study is understanding WHY there is variance. Thus, my suggestion to re-
title and slightly revise the article with that in mind. Perhaps something like, "investigating
sources of measurement invariance: the impact of survey burden, interviewer training, and
cultural context on the measurement of psychological IPV". However, I would note that this is
truly a *suggestion* as this is a well written, methodologically strong article as it is. As someone
who is interested in measurement and reads about measurement invariance perhaps more often
than the average violence researcher, I realized about halfway through the read, "wait....they
don't expect invariance! they are testing a specific invariance mechanism!"
Some specific notes for the Background/Introduction:
-I looked up the citations given for survey burden and the WHO report doesn't have much data
and the other article has not yet arrived by interlibrary loan so at this point, seems little support
for this claim (I could be wrong given interlibrary loan situation). Regardless, I would say a
little more in text about why we think burden is an important issue and consider finding some
additional citations to support the idea of burden. Particularly given in this study, all the measures
of interest were given within a pretty skewed window of late in survey where it seems everyone
would be potentially burdened, it may be a matter of degree (9-13 modules in).
-FIndings are mentioned on page 3; Findings belong in the Results section. This contributed a
bit to the feeling above that wait....what the title is and what I thought the study is about is a
little different than what it seems.
Methods:
-If it is at all possible, I'd give some estimates of the number of minutes per module, or average
median time to complete, something to help better indicate how long someone has been at this
interviewing by module 9 vs. module 13. With whats given, I can't tell if that means a different
of like, 15 minutes or 60 minutes which is a really large window for considering survey burden.
The difference between 9 vs. 13 could be a lot, it could be a little, I don't really know.
-Somewhat related, is "where" in the survey sensitive questions are asked a thing that may
vary culturally? In research I have done in the US we were trained to try and put the most
"burdensome" things somewhere in the middle so folks have time to "warm up"
but are not too fatigued. It's a really important methodological thing, but I can't think of any
actual data on the topic myself. My personal experience aside, mentioning a bit more context
about this would be lovely.
-I think it's really important to not just say that the items were "similarly" in wording but to
document what exactly was administered; how exactly were they different. Similar is not enough
given the wealth of research that small wording changes can have impacts on prevalence rates
in violence research.
Other strengths:
-Really appreciated that the items which were least/most invariant are clearly identified.
-Recommendations for future measurement research were great
-IMHO, Figure 1 could be a supplemental appendix item if page limits are an issue.
-Tables 1 and 2 are great; really illustrative.