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Psychometric properties of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Abuse Short Form (ACE-ASF) among Romanian high school students

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Cosma_CAN_PsychometricProperties_CC.pdf (203.9Kb)
Date
10/2017
Author
Meinck, Franziska
Cosma, Alina Paula
Mikton, Christopher
Baban, Adriana
Keywords
Child physical abuse
Child sexual abuse
Psychometrics
Measure development/validation
Health
H Social Sciences (General)
RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
BF Psychology
3rd-DAS
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Abstract
Child abuse is a major public health problem. In order to establish the prevalence of abuse exposure among children, measures need to be age-appropriate, sensitive, reliable and valid. This study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire Abuse Short Form (ACE-ASF). The ACE-ASF is an 8-item, retrospective self-report questionnaire measuring lifetime physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Data from a nationally representative sample of 15-year-old, school-going adolescents (n = 1733, 55.5% female) from the Romanian Health Behavior in School-Based Children Study 2014 (HBSC) were analyzed. The factorial structure of the ACE-ASF was tested with Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmed using Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Measurement invariance was examined across sex, and internal reliability and concurrent criterion validity were established. Violence exposure was high: 39.7% physical, 32.2% emotional and 13.1% sexual abuse. EFA established a two-factor structure: physical/emotional abuse and sexual abuse. CFA confirmed this model fitted the data well [χ2(df) = 60.526(19); RMSEA = 0.036; CFI/TLI = 0.990/0.986]. Metric invariance was supported across sexes. Internal consistency was good (0.83) for the sexual abuse scale and poor (0.57) for the physical/emotional abuse scale. Concurrent criterion validity confirmed hypothesized relationships between childhood abuse and health-related quality of life, life satisfaction, self-perceived health, bullying victimization and perpetration, externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and multiple health complaints. Results support the ACE-ASF as a valid measure of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in school-aged adolescents. However, the ACE-ASF combines spanking with other types of physical abuse when this should be assessed separately instead. Future research is needed to replicate findings in different youth populations and across age groups.
Citation
Meinck , F , Cosma , A P , Mikton , C & Baban , A 2017 , ' Psychometric properties of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Abuse Short Form (ACE-ASF) among Romanian high school students ' , Child Abuse and Neglect , vol. 72 , pp. 326-337 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.08.016
Publication
Child Abuse and Neglect
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.08.016
ISSN
0145-2134
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
Description
The study was funded by a Norway Innovation Grant [RO19.04] toward the Romanian Ministry of Health/National Institute of Public Health as part of the “Multilevel intervention to prevent non-communicable disease associated with the life style” (2014–2016). Franziska Meinck was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leader Award [ES/N017447/1], the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013, grant agreement 313421], the Leverhulme Trust [PLP-2014-095] and the University of Oxford’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account [1602-KEA-189; 1311-KEA-004 & 1609-GCRF-227].
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11612

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