Introducing a short-form Parental Attachment Questionnaire for Muslim Societies (PAQ-MS): a study among young adults in Pakistan

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the psychometric properties of Kenny’s 55-item Parental Attachment Questionnaire (PAQ), formatted for online administration, among a sample of 370 young adults between the ages of 18 and 26 who were born in the Punjab and had lived there since their birth, and tested the hypothesis that the negatively-voiced items would detract from the unidimensionality of the scales. The data identified the problematic nature within Muslim societies of many (but not all) of the negatively-voiced items concerning parents. The proposed 30-item short-form Parental Attachment Questionnaire for Muslim Societies (PAQ-MS), containing fewer negatively-voiced items, reported good qualities of internal consistency reliability and construct validity across the three domains of Affective Quality of Relationship with Mother/Father, Mother/Father as Facilitators of Independence, and Mother/Father as Source of Support.