Short Form Version of the Father and Mother Attachment Questionnaire (FMAQ)

Abstract

The Father and Mother Attachment Questionnaire (FMAQ) is a 30-item self-report measure developed for assessing adolescents’ and young adults’ representations of attachment relationships with each parental figure separately, across three dimensions: quality of emotional bond, separation anxiety, and inhibition of exploration and individuality. Five studies were conducted to develop a short-form of FMAQ and to examine whether this new short measure presented with fit psychometric properties. Study 1 involved Item Response Theory (IRT) analyses with 563 Portuguese adolescents and aim to select the best items to include in the short-form of the FMAQ. Studies 2 to 5 aimed to replicate the reliability and factor structure found in Study 1 through confirmatory factor analysis on independent samples of adolescents, young adults and adults. The IRT results suggested including 15-items in the short-form of FMAQ. The results provide support for the adjustment of the short factor structure, internal consistency, and invariance measurement (among gender of participants and parental roles), and predictive validity across different samples. The results obtained in the five studies indicate that the short-form FMAQ is a reliable instrument to assess the quality of attachment to parents in adolescence and emerging adulthood, as well as to evaluate adults’ perceptions of their parents as attachment figures during their adolescence. Thus, we suggest this short-form as a promising research tool for researchers quickly to assess attachment to parents in these ages taking into account a three-dimensional approach.