Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale

Abstract

Background: Despite the importance of the parents’ role in socializing children, there is no specific tool in this field in Iran. The Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES) is a tool to assess the parents’ responses to children’s emotions. Objectives: This study evaluated the reliability and factor structure of a Persian version of the CCNES. Methods: This study assessed the psychometrics of the CCNES with 400 mothers after translation/back-translation and adaptation into Persian. Mothers were recruited if they had a child aged 3 - 6 years old, lived in municipal district 6 of Tehran and scored less than 25 in the General Health Questionnaire. Results: The results revealed the internal consistency and confirmed the test-retest reliability of the Persian version of CCNES. The exploratory factor analysis yielded a model with six-subscales. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the obtained factors ranged from moderate to good/very good: Distress reactions (DR, 0.65), punitive reactions (PR, 0.80), minimizing reactions (MR, 0.80), ignoring reactions (IR, 0.8), expressive encouragement (EE, 0.84), emotion-problem focused reactions (EPFR, 0.88). Conclusions: According to the results, the Persian version of CCNES is a reliable and valid instrument for mothers to assess their responses to children’s emotions. Similar research is recommended for fathers.