Pilot study of parental alienation items in the adverse childhood experiences scale

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Parental Alienation (PA)are forms of adverse events negatively affecting children globally. The current study was to identify a revised ACEs measure that includes a screening item for PA.

A total of 231 undergraduate students, ages 18 to 37, were surveyed for this analysis. A factor analyses was performed to identify what PA item, out of four, would correlate most strongly with existing ACEs scale items. Convergent and divergent validity was assessed. An exploratory factory analyses was conducted to identify factor structure of scale items and a confirmatory factory analysis of extracted factors was used to assess model fit.

Over half (60 %) of the sampled population reported at least one ACEs item. All four PA items were significantly correlated with converging constructs (r = 0.68, p < .01). Out of four PA items, one PA item significantly outperformed the other three items in relation to convergent validity and was used to create a new ACEs-PA scale item (r = 0.33, p < .01). A two factor solution was identified with the new PA item loading, accounting for 35 % of the variance, explaining more variance in both outcomes (R2 = 0.43 and R2 = 0.16) than the original ACEs scale when comparing the adjusted R2 values (R2 = 0.35 and R2 = 0.13). Limitations This study used participant self-reporting methods subjecting it to retrospective bias.

Within the population, the new PA item factored significantly with existing ACEs, suggesting the capture of an additional adverse childhood experience.