Measuring the potential for child maltreatment: the reliability and validity of the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory--2

OBJECTIVE: The field of child protection needs reliable and valid methods of assessing the potential for child abuse and neglect. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory--2 (AAPI-2), Form B, using a sample of 309 low-income, rural families in a southern state. METHOD: The AAPI-2 is a 40-item survey designed to assess the parenting and child rearing attitudes of adult and adolescent parent and pre-parent populations. Each of the five AAPI-2 scales was (a) examined using factor analysis in order to determine the unidimensionality of the scale, (b) evaluated based on estimates of the scales reliability in order to determine the consistency with which the construct was measured, and (c) when possible, examined to determine if it is related to other constructs in meaningful and expected ways. RESULTS: While the factor structure reported by the developer was not fully confirmed in this sample, there is some evidence that the instrument is measuring at least two of the constructs it purports to measure and that the total score may be useful. Correlations with other instruments measuring parenting behavior and child behavior were significant, and in the expected direction, offering some support for the validity of the AAPI-2. CONCLUSIONS: While the AAPI-2 appears to measure attitudes related to harsh or neglectful parenting, caution should be used in the interpretation of the individual AAPI-2 scales.