Cvq_R - the Revised Extension of the Client Violence Questionnaire

Background: Workplace-climate and workforce-development for social-workers often tends to overlook the unpleasant facets of social-work daily practice. Yet, while client aggression and violence are quite common phenomena, almost no validated scales have been presented in the professional literature. One exception is the Client Violence Questionnaire (CVQ), a measure that was first developed and validated a decade ago (Enosh, Tzafrir, & Stolovy, 2015), and has since been applied in several studies in Israel and across Europe (Sousa, Silva, Veloso, Tzafrir, & Enosh, 2015). Originally, the scale consisted of 14 items within four subscales: Verbal aggression, Threats, Property damage, and Physical violence. The current study set out to expand the scope of measured aggressive acts towards social-workers and examine the relevance of the scale for US social-workers.

Method: The study used a mixed-method approach. First, a qualitative preliminary process involved interviewing the head of psychological services of LA County DCFS and several other senior supervisors in the organization regarding the appropriateness and relevance of the CVQ and its existing subscales for their workers. Following this process, 15 additional questions were added to address various forms of violence not previously studied, as well as context-specific forms. These 15 items comprised four new subscales: Stalking, Cyber-stalking/bullying, Dog attacks, and Sexual Aggression. The expanded scale was renamed CVQ_R. In the second step of the process, a survey of LA County DCFS social-workers was conducted, yielding 2,513 responses. Descriptive statistics, subscale reliabilities, and correlations between subscales were calculated.

Results: Of the respondents, 2087 (83.0%) self-identified as females, 379 (15.1%) as males, and 46 (1.9%) as other gender. Following are number of items, reliability scores (Cronbach's Alpha), as well as descriptive statistics for each of the subscales. Verbal aggression: 2 items, Alpha=0.93, M=2.30, SD=2.35, percent of respondents exposed over the last year (%)=52.9; Threats: 4 items, Alpha=0.78, M=1.29, SD=1.60, %=47.1; Property: 4 items, Alpha=0.74, M=0.18, SD=0.61, %=16.4; Sexual harassment: 3 items, Alpha=0.61, M=0.01, SD=0.17, %=1.5; Physical: 3 items, Alpha=0.78, M=0.02, SD=0.19, %=2.0; Dog attacks: 4 items, Alpha=0.80, M=0.03, SD=0.21, %=4.8; Cyberstalking: 4 items, Alpha=0.83, M=0.11, SD=0.49, %=11.2; Stalking: 2 items, Alpha=0.59, M=0.02, SD=0.20, %=2.1. Interestingly, there were significant differences between males and females only in exposure to verbal abuse (Males: 47.8%; Females: 54.0%; p<0.05).

Implications: The findings indicate the need to further examine and expand forms of aggression directed at social-workers in their daily work, as well as the need to further develop and validate the measurement of such forms. The relative prominence of cyberstalking/cyberbullying as a form of aggression towards social-workers indicates the interconnection between forms of victimization and changing societal processes. Context-specific forms of victimization, such as dog attacks, may not necessarily be relevant to every cultural and environmental context in which social-workers are engaged, but are important to note and address within their specific work context. Validated measures can help standardize research in this understudied field and can serve the need of large organizations to assess and protect their workers.