Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity Questionnaire (APCA)

Abstract

The Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity (APCA), developed by King et al. in 2023, is a comprehensive psychological instrument designed to provide a more detailed and nuanced characterization of adverse experiences compared to existing measures. The APCA uniquely facilitates the simultaneous assessment of a parent’s exposure to adversity and the exposure experienced by their focal child. A critical feature of the scale is its ability to factor in the developmental timing of these experiences, including the child’s indirect exposure resulting from parental adversities. The instrument’s content was carefully constructed based on established tools, notably the Crisis in Family Systems–Revised (CRISYS) and the Life Stressor Checklist–Revised (LSC-R). Initial validation was conducted on a sample of mothers, spanning the periods during and post-pregnancy, whose children were aged between three and five years.

The APCA allows researchers to move beyond simple counts of adversity by generating specific summary scores that distinguish between the timing (e.g., prenatal vs. post-natal) and the type (e.g., direct vs. witnessed) of exposure, offering a valuable tool for developmental psychopathology research.

Keywords

Adverse Experiences, Child Adversity, Parent Adversity, Developmental Timing, Cumulative Adversity, Psychopathology, Stressors, Family Systems.

Authors

King, Lucy S., Humphreys, Kathryn L., Shaw, Gary M., Stevenson, David K., Gotlib, Ian H.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity (APCA) questionnaire is to overcome the limitations inherent in prior measures of life stress and trauma. By providing a comprehensive and detailed characterization of adverse experiences, the APCA aims to capture the complexity of exposure faced by both parents and their children within the family system.

Furthermore, the scale is specifically designed to differentiate distinct aspects of these adverse experiences, such as timing and directness of exposure, that are hypothesized to significantly influence or moderate children’s developmental outcomes, particularly in terms of emotional and behavioral health.

Construct

The APCA measures the construct of cumulative and time-sensitive familial and individual adversity exposure. This construct encompasses two main domains: parental lifetime adversity (categorized by timing: childhood, preconception, prenatal, and post-birth) and the focal child’s direct and indirect exposure to adverse events. By separating these domains and tracking the temporal component, the instrument allows for precise testing of hypotheses regarding the intergenerational transmission of risk and the impact of specific developmental periods (e.g., prenatal) on child adjustment.

Validity

The APCA has demonstrated validity across multiple crucial dimensions within the initial evaluation sample of mothers and young children.

• Convergent Validity: The APCA showed strong agreement with other established measures of maternal adverse experiences, maternal positive childhood experiences, and maternal symptoms of psychopathology. This correlation confirms that the APCA is successfully measuring similar constructs of stress and mental health as assessed by these comparison instruments, lending support to its Convergent Validity.

• Criterion Validity: The instrument demonstrated robust predictive capabilities, confirming its Criterion Validity. Specifically, maternal reports of greater adversity exposure, particularly that occurring during the prenatal period, were significantly associated with an increased exhibition of emotional and behavioral problems in their children. Additionally, children who experienced greater direct adversity exposure also showed a heightened likelihood of emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Reliability

Reliability data for the Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity (APCA) was not provided in the original validation study documentation.

Factor Analysis

Data regarding the factor structure or exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis of the APCA was not provided in the original documentation.

Instrument

Test Type: Original Inventory/Questionnaire.

Format: The APCA is structured into three distinct sections administered to the parent (mother).

• The first section presents mothers with 40 distinct types of parental lifetime adversity, requiring a binary “yes” or “no” response to indicate exposure.

• The second section consists of detailed follow-up questions for every adversity item endorsed in the first section. These questions capture critical information such as the frequency, duration, and developmental timing of the experience.

• The final section focuses on the focal child’s exposure. Mothers respond with “yes” or “no” to 15 types of adversity where the child was the primary individual exposed (e.g., bullying or accidents). A series of follow-up questions are then answered for each endorsed experience to provide contextual detail.

• The APCA yields several distinct summary scores, including Maternal childhood adversity; Maternal preconception adversity; Maternal prenatal adversity; Maternal adversity since the child’s birth; Maternal cumulative adversity; Child witnessed adversity; and Child direct adversity.

Language Available: English.

Population Group: Human; Female (Mothers are the primary respondents).

Age Group: The instrument is designed for administration to mothers in Adulthood (18 years and older), typically spanning Young Adulthood (18-29 yrs), Thirties (30-39 yrs), and Middle Age (40-64 yrs).

Population Details: The initial study sample utilized for the APCA’s evaluation consisted of mothers residing within the United States.

Test Methodology: The methodology primarily involved Test Validity procedures, with specific focus on establishing Convergent Validity and Criterion Validity.

Keywords

Adverse Experiences, Child Adversity, Parent Adversity, Developmental Timing, Prenatal Stress, Psychometric Validation, Family Stressors.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier (Gary M. Shaw): http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7438-4914

Affiliation Email addresses (Lucy S. King): [email protected]

Correspondence Address (Lucy S. King): King, Lucy S.: Tulane University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, 70112, [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: Contact Corresponding Author (Lucy S. King).

Commercial: No.

Fee: No.

Test Year: 2023.

Reference’s

King, L. S., Humphreys, K. L., Shaw, G. M., Stevenson, D. K., & Gotlib, I. H. (2023). Validation of the Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity (APCA) in mothers and young children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 52(5), 686–701. doi:10.1080/15374416.2022.2042696

Items of the Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity Questionnaire (APCA)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Test Items are not available.