Psychometric Properties of the Spouse Specific Dependency Scale for Women (SSDS-W)

Abstract

The aim of this research was to adapt and validate the Spouse Specific Dependency Scale for Women (SSDS-W) for use in the Brazilian context, which consists of 30 items. In study 1, 347 women participated. It was obtained a three-dimensional structure: anxiety attachment (α = .88), emotional dependence (α = .80) and exclusive dependence (α = .72), with satisfactory internal consistencies. In the second study, 325 women participated, and three structural equation models were tested. The results indicated that the EDEC-M presented better index adjustment in the second-order hierarchical model: χ2 /df = 1.89; CFI = .95; TLI = .95; GFI = .95; RMSEA .05 and SRMR = .07. This model was supported by Item Response Theory (IRT), which analyzed a satisfactory variation of the item difficulty and allowed the construction of an Item Map for the measure. Therefore, the EDEC-M presented satisfactory psychometric properties evidence of construct validity for the Brazilian context in women.