Parenting-STAIR Modular for Military Fathers and OCONUS Families

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Checklist 5

The PCL-5 will be used to assess severity and change in PTSD symptoms. The PCL-5 is a 20-item self-report measure with strong evidence of reliability and convergent validity. Participants indicate the degree to which they have been bothered by problems related to a traumatic experience in the past month (e.g., "repeated, disturbing dreams of the stressful experience"; "feeling very upset when something reminded you of the stressful experience") on a 5-point Likert scale (0=not at all; 1=a little bit; 2=moderately; 3=quite a bit; 4=extremely). Summed responses yield a continuous score ranging from 0 to 80; higher scores indicate greater symptom severity.

Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)

The PHQ-9 will be used to assess severity and change in depressive symptoms. The PHQ-9 is a 9-item self-report measure with strong evidence of reliability and predictive and convergent validity. Participants indicate how often they have been bothered by particular problems within the past two weeks (e.g., "feeling down, depressed, or hopeless"; "poor appetite or overeating") on a 4-point Likert scale (0=not at all; 1=several days; 2=more than half the days; 3=nearly every day). Summed responses yield a continuous score ranging from 0 to 27; higher scores indicate greater symptom severity.

Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory-version 2 (AAPI-2)

The AAPI-2 will be used to measure child-maltreatment risk. The AAPI-2 is a 40-item self-report measure with strong psychometric properties and predictive validity. Participants indicate how much they agree or disagree with statements about parenting and raising children (e.g., "Time-out is an effective way to discipline children") on a 5-point Likert scale (SD=Strongly disagree, D=Disagree, U=Uncertain, A=Agree, SA=Strongly agree). AAPI-2 is scored using a stencil to assign each answer a number; summed numbers for five parenting categories are converted into standard scores that are plotted on a profile chart to show risk for abusive or neglectful parenting behavior.

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

The SDQ will be used to assess child behaviors. The SDQ is a 25-item parent-report measure with good reliability, cross-informant correlation, and retest stability. Participant mothers indicate how true or untrue various statements about child behavior are relative to their participating child (e.g., "Shares readily with other children, for example toys, treats, pencils", "Often fights with other children or bullies them") on a 3-point Likert scale (0=not true; 1=somewhat true; 2=certainly true). Summed responses yield a continuous score ranging from 0 to 40; higher scores indicate greater behavioral difficulty.

Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC)

The PSOC will be used to assess parental functioning as reflected by parenting self-efficacy. The PSOC is a 17-item self-report measure with strong evidence of reliability and validity. Participants indicate how much they agree or disagree with statements related to parenting (e.g., "Being a parent is manageable, and any problems are easily solved"; "My mother/father was better prepared than I am to be a good parent") on a 6-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree; 2=disagree; 3=somewhat disagree; 4=somewhat agree; 5=agree; 6=strongly agree). Summed responses yield a continuous score ranging from 17 to 102; higher scores indicate greater parenting competency.

Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)

DERS, which measures emotion regulation, will be evaluated as a potential mediator. DERS is a 36-item self-report measure with adequate reliability and construct and predictive validity. Participants indicate how true or untrue various statements about emotions are for them (e.g., "I have no idea how I am feeling"; "I know exactly how I am feeling") on a 5-point Likert scale (1=almost never; 2=sometimes; 3=about half the time; 4=most of the time; 5=almost always). Summed responses yield a continuous score ranging from 36 to 180; higher scores indicate greater emotion regulation difficulty.

Brief Cope

Brief Cope, which measures coping, will be evaluated as a potential mediator. Brief Cope is a 28-item self-report measure with adequate reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. Participants indicate how much or how often they have used various coping strategies (e.g., "I used alcohol or other drugs to make myself feel better"; "I took action to try to make the situation better") on a 4-point Likert scale (0=I didn't do this at all; 1=I did this a little bit; 2=I did this a medium amount; 3=I did this a lot). Summed responses within each of 14 subscales (e.g., substance use; active coping) yields a continuous score ranging from 0 to 6; higher scores indicate greater use of a particular coping strategy.