CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 95Child Abuse and TraumaPsychometric Methodologies and TestingPsychological Testing and Assessment

An evaluation of the measurement equivalence of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire—Short Form across gender and race in a sample of drug-abusing adults

Open access
Thombs, Brett D., Lewis, Charles, Bernstein, David P., Medrano, Martha A., Hatch, John P.·2007·Journal of Psychosomatic Research
DOI 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2007.04.010
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Objective A number of practice guidelines and recommendations call for an assessment of childhood abuse history among adult medical patients. The cultural sensitivity of screening instruments, however, has not been examined. High rates of childhood abuse history have been reported among adults who abuse substances. The objective of this study was to investigate the measurement invariance of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire--Short Form (CTQ-SF) across groups defined by gender and race in a sample of substance-abusing adults.Methods This study performed a cross-sectional survey of 693 active intravenous drug abusers from San Antonio, TX. Structural equation modeling methods were used to evaluate the measurement invariance of the CTQ-SF between male and female subjects and between Black and Hispanic subjects.Results Evidence was found for the invariance of the five-factor structure of the CTQ-SF across groups and for a partial invariance model at the item level. Consistent with study hypotheses, two items that referred to "abuse," using the actual word, were more likely to be endorsed by women than by men, even after controlling for responses on similar items. In addition, compared to Hispanics, Blacks tended to report having been "punished with hard objects" at higher rates than expected from their responses on other items related to physical abuse.Conclusion The amount of bias from nonmeasurement invariance in the CTQ-SF across groups was minimal at the total scale score level. Clinically, however, individual questions that use broad labeling terms are more likely to identify women as having a history of abuse, and individual questions that blend the constructs of physical discipline and physical abuse may overidentify Black Americans as having a history of abuse.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2007.04.010

Cites

60 of 60 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 62 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Thombs, B. D., Lewis, C., Bernstein, D. P., Medrano, M. A., & Hatch, J. P.
Affiliations
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
  • Fordham University (US)
  • Maastricht University (NL)
  • The University of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center (US)
Corresponding author
Thombs, Brett D.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Psychosomatic Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2007-10
Volume
63
Issue
4
Pages
391-398
ISSN
0022-3999 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jpsychores.2007.04.010
OpenAlex
W2128378620
Cited by
95
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 5
FWCI
2.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Journal of Psychosomatic Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • eScholarship@McGill (McGill) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • McGill University
  • National Institutes of Health (5u01da007471-05)
  • Canadian Institutes of Health Research
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA07471)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
Keywords
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, measurement invariance, childhood abuse, substance abuse, people who inject drugs, gender differences, racial differences, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, physical abuse, physical discipline
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Child, Ethnicity, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Retrospective Studies, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Substance-Related Disorders

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review