The Neurobehavioral Symptom Inventory: Psychometric Properties and Symptom Comparisons in Women With and Without Brain Injuries Due to Intimate Partner Violence

This study psychometrically evaluated the Neurobehavioral Symptom Inventory (NSI) among women survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and compared symptoms between women with no brain injury history (n = 93) and women with IPV-related brain injury history (n = 112). Women completed the NSI and questionnaires on traumatic brain injury (TBI), hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HI-BI), and lifetime IPV history. A four-factor NSI model, including affective, somatosensory, cognitive, and vestibular factors, had the best fit (comparative fit index = 0.970, root mean square error of approximation = 0.064), with strong reliability for the total score (ω =.93) and subscale scores (ω range =.72–.89). In group comparisons, women with IPV-related brain injuries reported greater total, affective, and cognitive symptom severity after adjusting for age and education; however, no group differences were observed after adjusting for IPV severity. When examining lifetime number of brain injuries, HI-BI count was independently predictive of total, cognitive, and vestibular symptom severity after adjusting for age, education, and IPV severity; whereas TBI count did not independently predict any NSI scores after adjusting for these covariates. The NSI had acceptable psychometric properties for measuring neurobehavioral symptoms among women survivors of IPV. The association between HI-BI count and cognitive and vestibular symptoms may indicate the importance of studying repetitive nonfatal strangulation as an injury mechanism in this population.