Development and Evaluation of the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences (APC)

OBJECTIVE: Aim of this study is to evaluate the newly developed Questionnaire for the Assessment of Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences (APC). METHODS: Reliability, convergent as well as criterion validity were assessed in a sample of 128 patients in a hospital-setting. RESULTS: The APC showed high to very high reliability for the two main scales and for most of its subscales, convergent validity, and was related to depression and attachment insecurity. The scale for the assessment of protective childhood experiences explained incremental variance regarding validity. CONCLUSION: The APC is an enhanced instrument for the assessment of adverse childhood experiences. Especially the simultaneous assessment of protective childhood experiences can be of particular importance for research and practice.