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. You need approximately 5 minutes to complete the test. The responses use a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Never True to Very Often True.
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 analysis tests on the five-factor CTQ model showed structural invariance which demonstrate good validity.
Purchasing the CTQ
Administration, Analysis and Reporting
Intellectus Consulting can assist the student or professional researcher in administering the survey instrument, collecting the data, conducting the analyses and explaining the results.
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Dissertations Using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire
Below is a list of published dissertations that use the CTQ. The full versions of these dissertations can be found on ProQuest.
Adams, S. M. (2007). Retention of previously incarcerated women in a community-based residential substance abuse treatment program. University of Kentucky).
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 Interview: 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.
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