ABSTRACT

Objective

Advancing understanding of how early adversity arises, manifests, and contributes to health difficulties depends on accurate measurement of children’s experiences. In early life, exposure to adversity is often intertwined with that of one’s caregivers. We present preliminary psychometric properties of a novel measure of adversity, the Assessment of Parent and Child Adversity (APCA), which simultaneously characterizes parents’ and children’s adversity.

Methods

During pregnancy, women reported their past adverse experiences. When their children were ages 3–5 years (47% female), 97 mothers (71% White, 17% Hispanic/Latinx) completed the APCA, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and the Benevolent Childhood Experiences scale. They reported their current symptoms of depression and anxiety and their child’s emotional and behavioral problems. Using the APCA, we distinguished between maternal adversity during different life periods and obtained metrics of child witnessing of and direct exposure to adversity.

Results

The APCA demonstrated validity with other measures of maternal adverse experiences, maternal positive childhood experiences, and maternal symptoms of psychopathology. Children whose mothers experienced greater adversity, particularly in the prenatal period, had more emotional and behavioral problems, as did children who were directly exposed to greater adversity.

Conclusions

The APCA has good usability and validity. Leveraging the ability of the APCA to distinguish between adversity during different life stages and originating from different sources, our findings highlight potentially distinct effects of different aspects of maternal and child adversity on difficulties in maternal and child mental health.

中文翻译：

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母亲和幼儿亲子逆境评估 (APCA) 的验证

摘要

客观的

加深对早期逆境如何产生、表现和导致健康困难的理解取决于对儿童经历的准确测量。在生命的早期，逆境往往与照顾者的逆境交织在一起。我们提出了一种新的逆境测量方法的初步心理测量特性，即父母和儿童逆境评估（APCA），它同时表征了父母和孩子的逆境。

方法

在怀孕期间，妇女报告了她们过去的不良经历。当孩子 3 至 5 岁时（47% 为女性），97 名母亲（71% 为白人，17% 为西班牙裔/拉丁裔）完成了 APCA、童年创伤问卷和仁慈童年经历量表。他们报告了目前的抑郁和焦虑症状以及孩子的情绪和行为问题。利用 APCA，我们区分了母亲在不同生命阶段所经历的逆境，并获得了儿童目睹和直接接触逆境的指标。

结果

APCA 证明了母亲不良经历、母亲积极童年经历和母亲精神病理学症状的其他衡量标准的有效性。母亲经历过更大逆境的孩子，尤其是在产前时期，会出现更多的情绪和行为问题，直接暴露于更大逆境的孩子也是如此。

结论

APCA具有良好的可用性和有效性。利用 APCA 区分不同生命阶段和不同来源的逆境的能力，我们的研究结果强调了孕产妇和儿童逆境的不同方面对孕产妇和儿童心理健康困难的潜在不同影响。