National Institute for Health and Care Research

Measure

Parent Trauma Response Questionnaire (PTRQ)

Age range 6 — 19
Completion time 10 Minutes
Respondent Parent / Carer
Problem areas
Other Trauma

Overview

The Parent Trauma Response Questionnaire (PTRQ) is a parent-report measure designed to assess parents' trauma-related appraisals and the ways in which they support their child's coping following a traumatic event. It assesses parental beliefs about permanent change or damage, the child's vulnerability and parental self-blame, alongside potentially maladaptive parenting responses such as overprotection and encouraging avoidance and potentially adaptive responses such as maintaining routines and encouraging approach coping.

Scoring & Interpretation

The PTRQ contains 50 items across two principal sections. Parental Appraisals – 30 items. Items are rated: 0 = Don't agree at all; 1 = Agree slightly; 2 = Agree quite a lot; 3 = Agree completely. These items contribute to three subscales: Permanent change/damage - Preoccupation with child's vulnerability- Self-blame Parental Support – 20 items. Items are rated: 0 = Not at all; 1 = A little; 2 = Some; 3 = A lot. These contribute to five subscales: Overprotection, Behavioural avoidance, Maintaining pre-trauma routines, Approach coping, Cognitive avoidance. Higher scores indicate greater endorsement of the relevant appraisal or parenting/support style. When calculating an overall Support Scale total, the Maintaining Pre-Trauma Routines and Approach Coping subscales are reverse-scored because these represent potentially adaptive rather than maladaptive support.

Psychometric Properties

Internal Consistency

The three Appraisal subscales demonstrated good-to-excellent internal consistency: Permanent Change/Damage: α = .91; Preoccupation with Child's Vulnerability: α = .90; Self-Blame: α = .86. Internal consistency for the five Support subscales was mixed: Overprotection: α = .72; Cognitive Avoidance: α = .90; Behavioural Avoidance: α = .78; Maintaining Pre-Trauma Routines: α = .68; Approach Coping: α = .71. Reliability was particularly strong for the maladaptive appraisal domains and Cognitive Avoidance. Maintaining Pre-Trauma Routines fell just below the conventional .70 threshold.

Test-Retest Reliability

Test–retest reliability was evaluated in 127 parents from the longitudinal PROTECT study, comparing assessments at approximately 1, 3 and 6 months following trauma. Appraisal subscales: Permanent Change/Damage: 1–3 months: ICC = .86; 3–6 months: ICC = .92 Preoccupation with Vulnerability: 1–3 months: ICC = .89; 3–6 months: ICC = .91; Self-Blame: 1–3 months: ICC = .87; 3–6 months: ICC = .86. Support subscales: Overprotection: .81 / .82; Cognitive Avoidance: .70 / .75; Behavioural Avoidance: .67 / .73; Maintaining Pre-Trauma Routines: .61 / .60; Approach Coping: .46 / .52 The Appraisal scales therefore demonstrated particularly strong temporal stability. Stability was weaker for the two adaptive support domains, especially Approach Coping.

Factor Structure

The Appraisal and Support sections were analysed separately using principal axis factoring with oblique rotation. Appraisal Scale: The 30 retained items produced a three-factor solution: Permanent Change/Damage - Preoccupation with Child's Vulnerability - Self-Blame. Support Scale The final 20 items produced a five-factor solution: Overprotection - Behavioural Avoidance - Maintaining Pre-Trauma Routines - Approach Coping - Cognitive Avoidance. This structure was derived through exploratory rather than confirmatory factor analysis. Independent CFA replication was not reported in the original study.

Validity

Convergent validity: PTRQ scores were compared with the established Parental Overprotection Scale (POS). General parental overprotection was significantly associated with all maladaptive PTRQ Appraisal and Support subscales. As theoretically expected, it was not significantly associated with Maintaining Pre-Trauma Routines or Approach Coping, the two potentially adaptive support domains.

Criterion-related validity: Greater parent-reported child post-traumatic stress symptoms were significantly associated with greater maladaptive parental appraisals and support behaviours.

Measurement Invariance

Not reported.

Access

The Williamson et al. (2018) article is published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence, which permits use, distribution and reproduction provided the original work is appropriately cited.
http://Williamson et al. (2018) – PubMed Central

Citation

Original Reference

Williamson, V., Hiller, R. M., Meiser-Stedman, R., Creswell, C., Dalgleish, T., Fearon, P., Goodall, B., McKinnon, A., Smith, P., Wright, I., & Halligan, S. L. (2018). The Parent Trauma Response Questionnaire (PTRQ): Development and preliminary validation. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 9(1), 1478583.

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References

Hiller, R. M., Meiser-Stedman, R., Creswell, C., Fearon, P., Lobo, S., & Halligan, S. L. (2017). A longitudinal investigation of the role of parental responses in predicting children's post-traumatic distress. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Williamson, V., Creswell, C., Butler, I., Christie, H., & Halligan, S. L. (2016). Parental responses to child experiences of trauma following presentation at emergency departments: A qualitative study. BMJ Open, 6.

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