Canadian Research in Brief

Preliminary evaluation of the Childhood Experiences of Violence Questionnaire Short Form

(2012), Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
Authors

Tanaka, Masako
Wekerle, Christine
Leung, Eman
Waechter, Randall
Gonzalez, Andrea
Jaimeson, Ellen
MacMillan, Harriet L.

Albeit there have been advances in child maltreatment research and theory, accurate measurement of exposure to child maltreatment is not well understood.  This article presents an evaluation of the Childhood Experiences of Violence Questionnaire (CEVQ) and the short form version (CEVQ-SF).  The CEVQ was developed for youth aged 12 to 18 years and asks about victimization experiences.  The CEVQ utilizes 18 behaviourally based questions to increase validity.  The areas of measurement are: bullying; physical punishment, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse; and exposure to violence.  There are an additional 64 questions about developmental stages of occurrence of abuse, perpetrators, and help-seeking behaviours.  Participants include 369 youth from the Maltreatment and Adolescent Pathways (MAP) longitudinal study, including the retest of 99 participants.  Results indicate that the CEVQ long and short forms had moderate to good reliability in measuring physical abuse, and sexual abuse.  Authors suggest the use of the CEVQ-SF in child welfare given the comparable psychometric properties to the long form and to reduce respondent burden.