BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1518064
Validation of a Short Form of the Perceptions of Interparental Conflict in Childhood
Provisionally accepted
- Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada
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Exposure to interparental conflict (IC) in childhood has been documented to be an important risk factor for parents' wellbeing and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. However, there is no French instrument available for measuring the childhood exposure to IC in parents. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a short form of the Perceptions of Interparental Conflict questionnaire (PIC-SF; Kline et al., 2003), which assesses memories of interparental conflict that occurred in the parents' own childhood. Data were collected between August 2021 and February 2023, and participants had a mean age of 39.2 years old (SD = 5.4). Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted among a representative sample of 610 parents of a toddler in the province of Québec (Canada), which was split into two subsamples (n=305). Results indicate that the PIC-SF demonstrates strong internal consistency supported by Cronbach's alpha (α = .95) and McDonald's omega (ω = .95). Additionally, a unifactorial structure was supported, accounting for 74% of the variance. Correlation analyses indicated that memories of exposure to IC in childhood were related to childhood interpersonal trauma, increased psychological distress, self-capacity alterations, and destructive conflict management strategies. Researchers and practitioners have access to a promising measure of memories of exposure to IC in childhood that could be used, free of fees, to document past family experiences and inform well-tailored services.
Keywords: Interparental conflict 1, parents 2, French-Canadian validation 3, Childhood interpersonal trauma 4, validation 5
Received: 27 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lassance, Paradis and Godbout. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Luciana Lassance, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada
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