Citation

Nivison MD, Filetti CR, Carlson EA, Jacobvitz DB, Roisman GI. Dev. Psychopathol. 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S0954579424001032

PMID

38832550

Abstract

A recent meta-analytic review demonstrated that retrospective assessments of childhood abuse acquired during adulthood - typically via self-report - demonstrate weak agreement with assessments of maltreatment gathered prospectively. The current report builds on prior findings by investigating the agreement of prospectively documented abuse from birth to age 17.5 years in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation with retrospective, Adult Attachment Interview-based assessments of childhood abuse administered at ages 19 and 26 years. In this sample, an agreement between prospective and retrospective assessments of childhood abuse was considerably stronger (κ =.56) than was observed meta-analytically. Retrospective assessments identified prospectively documented sexual abuse somewhat better than physical abuse, and the retrospective approach taken here was more sensitive to identifying abuse perpetrated by primary caregivers compared to non-caregivers based on prospective records.

Language: en

Keywords

child abuse; longitudinal; prospective; retrospective; Adult Attachment Interview; early caregiving