Development and validation of a brief screening version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire
Bernstein, DP., Stein, JA., Newcomb, MD., Walker, E., Pogge, D., Ahluvalia, T., Stokes, J., Handelsman, L., Medrano, M., Desmond, D., & Zule, W. (2003). Development and validation of a brief screening version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Child Abuse & Neglect, 27(2), 169-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(02)00541-0
Objective: The goal of this study was to develop and validate a short form of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (the CTQ-SF) as a screening measure for maltreatment histories in both clinical and nonreferred groups.
Method: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the 70 original CTQ items were used to create a 28-item version of the scale (25 clinical items and three validity items) and test the measurement invariance of the 25 clinical items across four samples: 378 adult substance abusing patients from New York City, 396 adolescent psychiatric inpatients, 625 substance abusing individuals from southwest Texas, and 579 individuals from a normative community sample (combined N=1978).
Results: Results showed that the CTQ-SF’s items held essentially the same meaning across all four samples (i.e., measurement invariance). Moreover, the scale demonstrated good criterion-related validity in a subsample of adolescents on whom corroborative data were available.
Conclusions: These findings support the viability of the CTQ-SF across diverse clinical and nonreferred populations.
