Evaluating the Parentification Questionnaire: Psychometric Properties and Psychopathology Correlates

The Parentification questionniare (PQ; Jurkovic and Thirkield in Parentification questionnaire, University Plaza, Atlanta, GA, 1998), developed to assess various levels of parentification retrospectively, is one of the most widely used instruments in the clinical and research literature base. Yet, despite its frequent use, no studies of which we are aware have examined the psychometric properties of this instrument. Thus, this study fills a gap in the literature by examining the psychometric properties of the PQ with a sample of 143 racially diverse college students. The data were subjected to exploratory analysis using principal component analysis. Varimax orthogonal rotations were applied to the analyses. The final results supported a three-component solution (although with fewer items), consistent with Jurkovic’s three-factor multidimensional clinical framework for understanding parentification. We also examined the relations between the resultant scores of the PQ and scores from the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis in Derogatis Brief symptom inventory: Administration, scoring, and procedures manual, National Computer Systems, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, 1993), which captures mental health symptomatology. These results reflected significant correlations in theoretically expected directions. However, taken together, the three PQ factors significantly accounted for the variance in psychopathology scores in only two of the four regression models. The preliminary results from this study support the reliability and multidimensional nature of the PQ scores. Implications for family therapy and suggestions for future family systems research are discussed.