The transliteral equivalence, reliability and validity studies of the parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire (PARQ) mother-form :|a tool for assessing child abuse

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the present study is to provide supporting evidence for the transliteral equivalence, reliability and validity of the Turkish Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ) mother-form, which is a self-report tool of mother's interactions with her child. The original instrument was developed by Rohner, Saavedra and Granum in 1980. It includes SO items in four subscales, namely the warmth-affection, aggressionhostility, indifference-neglect and undifferentiated rejection subscales. The initial translation of the PARQ mother-form was done by Polat and Sunar (1988). In the present research, after back translation and revision, tnasliteral equivalence study was carried out with 40 mothers, who were given different language forms with an interval. As hypothesized, no significant differences were found between the two language forms, while high correlation was established through Anova, Hest and Pearson Product Moment Correlation, respectively. Cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from .45 to .85. Close investigation of item-total and item-subscale correlation revealed some low figures 20). The scale was refined further in a pilot study, where 139 mothers from three education levels were administered the PARQ forms. Subscale-total correlations for all education groups (between .S3 and .89) and Cronbach a values of the subscales (for total PARQ a = .90) were high. Items 18.21 and 55 had nonsignificant item-subscale and item-total correlations across all groups, while item 52 had no differentiating characteristic for this population. Consequently, these four items were deleted from the Turkish form. Items 32 and 45 were transferred to other subscales, since their correlation was higher. After these revisions, subscale-total and Cronbach a correlations increased and the face validity of the scale improved. - The construct validity of the Turkish PARQ was investigated through hypothesis testing, using the following instruments: The Family Environment Questionnaire assessing cohesion and control, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Anxiety Scale, five factors of the Parental Attitude Research Instrument assessing overprotection, democracy, rejection of homemaking role, marital conflict and strict discipline. The instruments were administered to 229 mothers of low-middle-high education levels. Forty-eight mothers were readministered the PARa for test-retest reliability. According to the Anova statistics, highly rejecting mothers had lower cohesion scores (F= 6.824, p<.001), higher trait anxiety scores (F=5.426, p<.001), lower democracy scores (F=5.485, p<001), higher rejection of homemaking role scores (F=2.853, p<.05), higher strict discipline scores (F=5.797, p<.001) than low rejecting mothers, as hypothesized. However, no significant differences were found between high and low rejection mother groups in terms of control, overprotection and marital conflict and the related hypotheses were rejected. The hypothesis predicting that the low education mother group will have signifi-cantly higher rejection scores than the high education group, was supported (F=9.104, p<.001 ). The results of t-test and, Pearson Correlations, comparing low and high rejection groups and investigating their correlations with the above variables were parallel to the results of the hypotheses. The conceptual validity of the PARa was tested through factor analysiS, where 50 items clustered around one factor, namely the rejection factor. The test-retest reliability coefficients were not satisfactory, the coefficient for the total score being .46. The scale has low stability over time. Internal conSistency and homogeneity of the scale were tested by Cronbach a and Pearson correlations. Alpha coefficient for the total scale was .90. Subscale-total correlations ranged from. 75 to .86. Item-subscale correlations were between .16 and .59 (p<.001). Leaving out the items that showed low item-total corelatiens (items 1,3,24,36,48) an instrument with 51 items, with stronger internal consistency is provided for assessment of parental rejection. These results support the reliability and the construct validity of the Turkish PARa mother-form. However, the test-retest reliability should be studied further.