Psychometric properties and structural validation of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire with Witnessed Family Violence: a revised Italian version

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Early definitions of child maltreatment do not include the form of witnessed family violence, although literature stressed the strong co-occurrence of child maltreatment and domestic violence (Appel & Holden, 1998; Edleson, 1999; Hamby, Finkelhor, Turner, & Ormrod, 2010). Studies showed evidence that children who live in homes where domestic violence occurs are more likely to be abused and neglected (i.e. Osofsky, 2003).
However, although the theoretical and empirical assumptions suggest the need to integrate witnessed family violence within the child maltreatment construct, the assessment and the measurement of these forms tend to be separated. The majority of the instruments measuring child maltreatment does not include witnessed family violence in the construct definition. The present study aims to analyze the psychometric properties of the revised version of CTQ-SF scale where the dimension of witnessed family violence has been included as a dimension of child maltreatment. A second order structure has been tested where the child maltreatment latent construct is defined by the six first order dimensions of child maltreatment: witnessed family violence, emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse. The sample consisted of 358 students (88,3% females) from the University of Florence with age ranging from 18 to 47 years (M=20,14; SD=3,59). The results from the Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed a second order structure of the Italian revised version of CTQ-SF as the best model, with 25 items and six first order factors: witnessed family violence (WFV), emotional neglect (EN), emotional abuse (EA), sexual abuse (SA), physical abuse (PA) and physical neglect (PN). Fit indexes of the second order model showed acceptable estimates: χ2 (269) = 638.609, p<.0001, CFI =.97, RMSEA = .06, confidence interval [CI] 90% = .056,.068, WRMR = 1.282. The study confirms the definition of child maltreatment construct as measured by witnessed family violence together with the original dimensions of CTQ (emotional neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse and physical neglect).

Authors

• Ludovica Di Paola, Italy
  Presenting Author

• Annalaura Nocentini, University of Florence
  Non-Presenting Author