Parent supervision attributes profile questionnaire (PSAPQ) for young children: psychometric properties of the Chinese version.

Background: In China, thousands of children die from unintentional injury each year: the incidence rate of injury is from 19.4 to 64.3% which is the leading cause of mortality for children. An important factor to injury may be inadequate supervision. Thus, a linguistic and culturally appropriated, validated instrument to measure the supervision of children in Chinese primary caregiver is important and necessary. The purpose of this study was to translate and test the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Parent Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire (C-PSAPQ).

Methods: This is a two-phase study. In phase I, the C-PSAPQ was produced by for- and back-ward translation. A total of 296 primary caregivers of 3-6 years old children were invited to participate in the second phase of the psychometric study. In order to assess the reliability of the C-PSAPQ, internal consistency and test-retest methods were performed. Additionally, construct validity was examined by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The averaged variance extracted (AVE) and Bootstrap were used to test the convergent and to discriminate validity. The concurrent validity was assessed by evaluating the association between the self-reported C-PSAPQ and naturalistic observations.

Results: The Cronbach's α and intraclass correlation coefficients were acceptable for the C-PSAPQ and four subscales. The CFA supported a 4-factor loading model; however, the convergent validity was not acceptable (AVE < .5 for two subscales). The concurrent validity was supported.

Conclusions: Due to the unacceptable convergent validity of the C-PSAPQ, an exploratory factor analysis is needed to ensure that the same trait is measured by its indicators in different cultures.