Development of the Turkish Short Form of the Parental Trauma Reactions Questionnaire and Evaluation of Its Validity and Reliability

Abstract

Considering the buffering role of parents in children's post-trauma adjustment, the availability of a valid and reliable measure that captures parental cognitions and coping responses is essential for both clinical practice and research. Although the Parental Trauma Reactions Questionnaire (PTRQ), developed to assess parents' evaluations of and support for their children's coping processes following childhood trauma, provides an important foundation in this field, the lack of model fit evaluation and cross-cultural validation has limited its broader applicability. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the PTRQ, adapt it to the Turkish cultural context and develop a brief version to facilitate its use in both clinical and research settings. The research was carried out in two sequential studies. Study 1 re-examined the psychometric structure of the original PTRQ using the dataset from the initial development study, which included 365 parents. Factor structure and model fit were evaluated to determine whether the long forms retained an adequate structure. Study 2 focused on the cultural adaptation and validation of the Turkish version, conducted with 155 parents of trauma-exposed children aged 7–17 years. The CFA generally supported the multidimensional structure of the PTRQ-SF. Internal consistency assessed using Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega indicated acceptable reliability. Associations between parental trauma-related responses and child post-traumatic stress symptoms were broadly consistent with theoretically expected relationships, providing preliminary evidence for the theoretical relevance of the constructs assessed by the PTRQ-SF. However, the findings should be interpreted cautiously given the elevated RMSEA for the MAF-SF and the observed estimation issues. The findings provide preliminary support for the validity and reliability of the Turkish PTRQ-SF. Compared with the original long forms, the newly developed short forms demonstrated improved psychometric performance and offered a brief, practical instrument for assessing parental trauma-related responses in research and clinical settings.