Procedures
Women contacted the study office after seeing a flyer, at which time a research assistant conducted a brief screening to determine eligibility. If the poten- tial participant met the age and relationship criteria and agreed to participate, an appointment was made. Because of the purpose of the larger study, of which this study was a part, additional screening procedures and recruitment efforts were made to ensure that a reasonable number of participants had experienced domestic violence during the current pregnancy. After about half the sample had been recruited (n 5 96), the Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus,1979) was administered over the telephone during the initial screening procedures. This screen was eventually used to exclude women who had not experienced domestic violence during pregnancy after enough nonbattered women had been re- cruited. There were no demographic differences be- tween these excluded women and participants.