Aida Dias, Luísa Sales, António Carvalho, Ivone Castro-Vale, Rolf Kleber, Rui Mota Cardoso

Abstract

This study analyses the results of the adapted version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire – Short Form, in the Portuguese population. Psychometric properties were studied in 746 adult community subjects, testing the five factor model structure proposed by the authors of the original version. The test-retest reliability was analyzed in a group with 29 subjects. The internal consistency varies between .84 for the overall score, .79 for emotional neglect, .77 for physical abuse, .71 for emotional and sexual abuse, and .47 for physical neglect. Physical neglect internal consistency was found to be too low, confirming previous results from other studies, pointing the need for a sub-scale revision. Exposure to emotional neglect and verbal abuse were the most frequent adult self-reported forms of childhood maltreatment. The Portuguese version of CTQ-SF presented acceptable psychometric properties, except for physical neglect subscale. Future work using CTQ-SF should include alternative effective measures for physical neglect.