Relational adverse childhood experiences questionnaire: development and retrospective validation among young Iranian people

This study aimed to develop and retrospectively validate the relational adverse childhood experiences questionnaire (RACE-Q) in the context of home and school. In a cross-sectional design, 487 undergraduates (20.66 ± 1.42 years old, women: n = 288, 59.2%, men: n = 199, 41.8%) filled out the 12-item RACE-Q, including Yes/No questions as to the experience of the target incidence and five-point Likert-type follow-up questions as to the perceived impact of the experience. The anxiety subscale of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and four indexes of suicide acceptability, lifetime severe suicide ideation, general health, and loneliness were also investigated together with internal consistency reliability, construct validity, gender measurement invariance, concurrent validity, and incremental validity. The Yes/No questions predicted at least one of the high levels of anxiety, suicide acceptability, and lifetime suicidal ideation. The overall Cronbach’s alpha was .78. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested excluding loss of primary relationships while confirmed the four-factor a priori structure consisting of adverse parent-child relationship, adverse parent-parent relationship, adverse school relationships, and sexual abuse. Gender invariance was established, except for the physical abuse item. The subscales showed significant correlations with the outcomes, and the total scale predicted lifetime suicidal ideation beyond the covariates. RACE-Q can be employed as a short, reliable, and valid instrument to investigate relational ACEs.