Parental Considerations About Their Childs' Mental Health: Validating the German Adaptation of the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2024 Dec 4

PMID 39630624

Authors

Andreas S Wildner

Su Mevsim Kucukakyuz

Anton K G Marx

Tobias Nolte

Corinna Reck

Peter Fonagy

Patrick Luyten

Alexandra von Tettenborn

Mitho Muller

Anna-Lena Zietlow

Christian F J Woll-Weber

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Introduction: Parental Reflective Functioning describes the parents' ability to view their child as motivated by mental states. The Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ) represents an 18-item and three-factor self-report measure. Our goal was to conduct the first German validation study.

Method: In a community sample of 378 mothers of children aged 10.2-78.6 months, we used Confirmatory Factor Analysis with a cross-validation approach to assess model fit. Reliability was measured using Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω. Concurrent validity was assessed using correlations with relevant constructs.

Results: The three-factor structure of the original validation could be confirmed. The German model only needed minor modifications: two items had to be removed, and one error covariance was added. The resulting 16-item questionnaire with the three subscales "Pre-mentalizing", "Interest and Curiosity about Mental States", and "Certainty about Mental States" was successfully cross-validated (CFI = .94, TLI = .93, SRMR = .07, RMSEA = .04 (CI [.01, .06])). These factors were related in theoretically expected ways to parental attachment dimensions, emotional availability, parenting stress, and infant attachment status.

Conclusion: While reliability could still be improved, the German 16-item version of the PRFQ represents a valid measure of parental reflective functioning.

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