A psychometric Evaluation of the Parents as Social Context Questionnaire (PASCQ), Swedish version

Abstract

To understand parent and child relations researchers have used three bipolar dimensions (warmth and rejection, structure and chaos, autonomy support, and coercion). These dimensions are not necessarily bipolar but could work as unipolar dimensions. The Parents as Social Context Questionnaire (PASCQ) has been used in parenting studies but needs to be further investigated in different populations to ensure the validity and reliability of the scale. The present study explored the structures of and provided evidence regarding validity and reliability of the PASCQ. This study aimed to examine whether the Swedish version of the PASCQ is a reliable questionnaire when measuring the six dimension of parenting. The participants consisted of 1634 adolescents (58.6% females) born in 1997 (52%) and 1999. Factor analyses were conducted to investigate whether the Swedish scale generated six dimensions. Regression analyses were conducted to measure the different factors and spearman correlations between dimensions were conducted. The analysis indicates that the PASCQ consists of five dimensions, however rejection (negative) and warmth (positive) loaded on the same dimension and are referred to as two separate factors, making the questionnaire consistent of six dimensions. All items had a factor score >0.4 and loaded in a coherent manner. Therefore, the PASCQ can be used to assess six dimensions of parenting styles. The PASCQ Swedish version can be used as a measure of parenting styles in a Swedish population. Further research is necessary to evaluate the validity and reliability in other samples as well.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.