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Title: Development of the Comprehensive General Parenting Questionnaire for caregivers of 5-13 year olds

Author
item SLEDDENS, ESTER - Maastricht University
item O'CONNOR, TERESIA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item WATSON, KATHLEEN - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item HUGHES, SHERYL - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item POWER, THOMAS - Washington State University
item THIJS, CAREL - Maastricht University
item DE VRIES, NANNE - Maastricht University
item KREMERS, STEF - Maastricht University

Submitted to: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/6/2014
Publication Date: 2/10/2014
Citation: Sleddens, E.F., O'Connor, T.M., Watson, K.B., Hughes, S.O., Power, T.G., Thijs, C., De Vries, N.K., Kremers, S.P. 2014. Development of the Comprehensive General Parenting Questionnaire for caregivers of 5-13 year olds. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 11:15.

Interpretive Summary: Parents influence their child in multiple ways. A parent's general parenting style has been described as the emotional climate a parent creates between themselves and their child and is based on the parent's attitudes about child rearing and their parenting behaviors. Over the last several decades multiple survey instruments have been developed to measure a parent's parenting style, but most have focused on a limited aspect of parenting. In the field of childhood obesity, parenting styles have emerged as important because certain styles appear to promote healthier weights in their child. In this paper we describe the development and initial validation of a new Comprehensive General Parenting Questionnaire (CGPQ) to be used for obesity and other child outcome research. After developing an item bank of existing parenting measures for five key general parenting styles (nurturance, overprotection, coercive control, behavioral control, and structure) a 145 item survey instrument was developed and tested. Using advanced statistical analysis, additional review, and cognitive interviews with parents, we propose an 85 item CGPQ that should be further evaluated for structure and construct validity. The resulting CGPQ may facilitate research assessing how parents influence their child's weight related behaviors and may prove useful in future descriptive and intervention based research on childhood obesity.

Technical Abstract: Despite the large number of parenting questionnaires, considerable disagreement exists about how to best assess parenting. Most of the instruments only assess limited aspects of parenting. To overcome this shortcoming, the "Comprehensive General Parenting Questionnaire" (CGPQ) was systematically developed. Such a measure is frequently requested in the area of childhood overweight. First, an item bank of existing parenting measures was created assessing five key parenting constructs that have been identified across multiple theoretical approaches to parenting (Nurturance, Overprotection, Coercive control, Behavioral control, and Structure). Caregivers of 5- to 13-year-olds were asked to complete the online survey in the Netherlands (N = 821), Belgium (N = 435) and the United States (N = 241). In addition, a questionnaire regarding personality characteristics ("Big Five") of the caregiver was administered and parents were asked to report about their child's height and weight. Factor analyses and Item-Response Modeling (IRM) techniques were used to assess the underlying parenting constructs and for item reduction. Correlation analyses were performed to assess the relations between general parenting and personality of the caregivers, adjusting for socio-economic status (SES) indicators, to establish criterion validity. Multivariate linear regressions were performed to examine the associations of SES indicators and parenting with child BMI z-scores. Additionally, we assessed whether scores on the parenting constructs and child BMI z-scores differed depending on SES indicators. The reduced questionnaire (62 items) revealed acceptable fit of our parenting model and acceptable IRM item fit statistics. Caregiver personality was related as hypothesized with the CGPQ parenting constructs. While correcting for SES, overprotection was positively related to child BMI. The negative relationship between structure and BMI was borderline significant. Parents with a high level of education were less likely to use overly forms of controlling parenting (i.e., coercive control and overprotection) and more likely to have children with lower BMI. Based on several author review meetings and cognitive interviews the questionnaire was further modified to an 85-item questionnaire. The CGPQ may facilitate research exploring how parenting influences children's weight-related behaviors. The contextual influence of general parenting is likely to be more profound than its direct relationship with weight status.