Psychometric properties of the international adverse childhood experience questionnaire in Mashhad

Considering the significant impact of early childhood experiences on various dimensions of physical and psychological life and related problems and according to the literature, the lack of a coherent questionnaire to investigate adverse experiences is obvious, so it is essential to prepare a valid questionnaire to perform preventive and therapeutic interventions.

The purpose of the present study was to validate the International Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) in Mashhad.

Regarding methodology, this research was among the descriptive researches of (survey) type. The statistical population included all people over 18 years of age living in Mashhad in 2021, of which 285 people were selected by purposive sampling. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine validity with the help of SPSS21 and AMOS22 software.

The content of the International Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire items showed that this scale has six factors with favorable fit indices. Also, Cronbach's alpha values for the subscales related to parents and caregivers, family environment, aggression, peer violence, witnessing community violence, and witnessing collective violence or war are acceptable. The results showed that this questionnaire has good convergent and divergent construct validity.

The findings of this research showed that based on the obtained factors, the International Questionnaire of Adverse Childhood Experiences is a suitable scale for evaluating adverse childhood experiences in Iran and can be used as a valid scale in fields such as research and assessment.