The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was developed as a screening tool for histories of abut and neglect. The self-report includes a 28-item test that measures 5 types of maltreatment – emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and emotional and physical neglect. Common uses for the CTQ are formulating treatment plans, conducting child custody investigations, and assessing special populations. Approximately 5 minutes is required to complete the test. A 5-point Likert scale is used for the responses which range from Never True to Very Often True.
Authors
David P. Bernstein & Laura Fink, 1997.
Reliability and Validity
Reliability for the CTQ is good with high internal consistency scores. Sexual Abuse, Emotional Neglect, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse have reported coefficients of .93-.95, .88-92, .84-.89, and .81-.86, respectively. Over a 3 ½ month period, the test-retest coefficient was calculated at close to 0.80. Factor analyses tests on the five-factor CTQ model showed structural invariance which demonstrate good validity.
Obtaining the CTQ
References
Bernstein, D. P., Fink, L., Handelsman, L., & Foote, J. (1994). Initial reliability and validity of a new retrospective measure of child abuse and neglect. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151 (8), 1132-1136.
Fink, L. A., Bernstein, D., Handelsman, L., Foote, J., & Lovejoy, M. (1995). Initial reliability and validity of the Childhood Trauma Inteview: A new multidimensional measure of childhood interpersonal trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry, 152 (9), 1329-1335.
Bernstein, D. P., Ahluvalia, T., Pogge, D., Handelsman, L. (1997). Validity of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire in an adolescent psychiatric population. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 36 (3), 340-348.
