Italian Adaptation of the Multidimensional Measure of Emotional Abuse (MMEA)

The purpose of the present study was to contribute to the research and literature on psychological abuse through the Italian adaptation of the Multidimensional Measure of Emotional Abuse (MMEA; Murphy & Hoover, 1999; Murphy, Hoover, & Taft, 1999) and to evaluate its psychometric properties. The MMEA is a multifactor measure assessing the following four subtypes of psychological abuse for both Victimization (abuse by the partner) and Perpetration (abuse by the self): Restrictive Engulfment, Denigration, Hostile Withdrawal, and Dominance/Intimidation. The sample was recruited from two cit- ies in central Italy and comprised 417 college students (188 males and 229 females), who were in- volved in a heterosexual romantic relationship of at least six months’ duration. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the original four-factor structure for both Victimization and Perpetration. Moreover, the four subscales showed satisfactory internal consistency coefficients () for both Victimization and Perpetration. Furthermore, validity analysis revealed that the MMEA subscales correlated moderately to highly with communication measures and relationship satisfaction. The present study, therefore, demonstrates that MMEA is a reliable measure assessing different, but correlated, forms of psychologi- cal abuse within the Italian context.