The Parent Adult-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PACQ): the assessment of the relationship of adult children to their parents

We review current understanding of the parent adult-child relationship, des cribe the development of an instrument to measure this relationship and pro pose kev themes which define the relationship A 97-item self-report questio nnaire nas administered to two convenience samples (N = 302, N = 100) compr ising primary care patients and community residents. The most interpretable solutions to Principal Components Analyses of a reduced pool of items were , for the mother, an orthogonal two-factor solution (regard and responsibil ity, comprising 13 items) and, for the father, a three-factor solution (reg ard, responsibility and control, comprising 13 items). The Parent Adult-Chi ld Questionnaire (PACQ) was found to be valid and reliable as a self-report measure of the filial relationship. We suggest that PACQ has both clinical and research utility.