INITIAL RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE CHILDHOOD TRAUMA INTERVIEW - A NEW MULTIDIMENSIONAL MEASURE OF CHILDHOOD INTERPERSONAL TRAUMA

Objective: The Childhood Trauma Interview a new instrument for brief a nd comprehensive retrospective assessment of childhood interpersonal t rauma, is presented with initial evidence of its reliability and valid ity. Method: Drug- or alcohol-dependent patients (N=220) were given th e Childhood Trauma Interview and a questionnaire measure of child abus e, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Convergent and discriminant val idity for the Childhood Trauma Interview were tested by comparing corr elations between analogous and nonanalogous trauma scales to those of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Results: Interrater reliability fo r the majority of trauma dimensions measured by the Childhood Trauma I nterview was very high (63% had intraclass correlations above 0.90). P rincipal-components analysis yielded six rotated factors that accounte d for 74% of the variance among scores: separations and losses, physic al neglect, emotional abuse or assault, physical abuse or assault, wit nessing violence, and sexual abuse or assault. Since these six factors exactly represented the areas that the interview was designed to asse ss, the construct validity of the Childhood Trauma Interview was suppo rted. Without exception, convergent correlations were significantly hi gher than discriminant correlations, and convergence was improved when multidimensional variables from the Childhood Trauma Interview and th eir interactions were regressed onto Childhood Trauma Questionnaire sc ores. Conclusions: These initial findings suggest that the Childhood T rauma Interview is a reliable and valid method for brief assessment of multiple dimensions of six types of childhood interpersonal trauma.