Short Communication Prevalence of same-sex intimate partner violence in Hong Kong W.W.S. Mak*, E.S.K. Chong, M.M.F. Kwong Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong article info Article history: Received 24 August 2009 Received in revised form 11 January 2010 Accepted 3 February 2010 Available online 3 March 2010 Despite numerous studies to investigate intimate partner violence (IPV) among heterosexual couples in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, 1,2 no empirical studies have been under- taken to date focusing on same-sex IPV. Due to heterosexism and the belief that partner abuse is perpetrated solely by men towards women, same-sex IPV is hardly visible. 3 The present study is the first to investigate the prevalence of various forms of same-sex IPV in Asia. By definition, although IPV is the abuse that occurs between two people in a close relationship regardless of gender, most of the current legislations, policing guidelines and services for domestic violence in Hong Kong focus on opposite-sex couples and lack sensitivity towards same-sex couples. 4 In 2007, the Hong Kong Government extended the scope of protection of the Domestic Violence Ordinance (DVO) from married couples and opposite-sex partners to former spouses, former opposite-sex partners and members of kinship. On 10 January 2009, the Hong Kong Government started a public hearing on the inclusion of same-sex couples in the DVO, and eventually passed such an amendment by the end of the year; this will take effect in 2010. Nevertheless, same-sex partners are still precluded in most Asian cities, with the exception of a few regions in Asia (e.g. Taiwan and Changchun) that have already adopted legislation protecting same-sex partners. Given that no empirical study to date has investigated the extent of IPV among same-sex couples in Asia, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of same- sex IPV and compare the rates with those among hetero- sexual couples in Hong Kong using the same assessment tool. With the assistance of various gay, lesbian and bisexual (LGB)-friendly organizations and Internet platforms, adults aged 18 years or above who were in or who had been in a same-sex relationship were recruited. Upon informed consent, they completed an anonymous web-based ques- tionnaire in either Chinese or English, depending on their language preference. IPV was assessed using the 78-item Chinese Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2), which has been validated cross-culturally among Chinese. 5,6 This measured psychological aggression, physical assault, injury and sexual coercion from the perspectives of victim and perpetrator. The internal consistency of the CTS2 subscales in this study was satisfactory (a ranged from 0.72 to 0.88). The addition of six LGB-identity salient items was adopted from other same-sex IPV studies to tap into tactics that are only relevant for LGB. 7 Among the 398 individuals who completed questionnaires, 339 participants who were currently (79.4%) or had been (20.6%) in a same-sex relationship in the past 2 years were included in the present analysis. To analyse the data, the prevalence rate was calculated as the percentage of individuals who reported at least one instance of any one act in each of the subscales across the whole period of the relationship. 5 To more parsi- moniously conceptualize multiple forms of abuse, psycholog- ical abuse was operationalized as any LGB-identity salient tactics or ‘psychological aggression’ tactics from the CTS2, and physical abuse was operationalized as any tactics in the ‘physical assault’ or ‘injury’ subscales of the CTS2. The sample had a mean age of 26.2 years [standard devi- ation (SD) 6.9], and the majority of participants were female * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ852 2609 6577; fax: þ852 2603 5019. E-mail address: wwsmak@psy.cuhk.edu.hk (W.W.S. Mak). available at www.sciencedirect.com Public Health journal homepage: www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/pubh public health 124 (2010) 149–152 0033-3506/$ – see front matter ª 2010 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2010.02.002