Child Abuse and Unrealistic Expectations: Further Validation of the Parent Opinion Questionnaire

This second validation study of the Parent Opinion Questionnaire (POQ) compared the unrealistic expectations of child abusing mothers ( n = 16) with mothers whose partners perpetrated the abuse ( n = 14). This comparison provided a more stringent test of the POQ's validity in that it controlled for nonspecific factors associated with being in a family identified for child maltreatment. As expected, significantly greater unrealistic expectations of child behavior were found for abusing mothers than for control mothers. A discriminant function analysis showed that the POQ correctly classified 83% of the subjects. This measure's clinical usefulness is discussed.