The brief Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Revised Child version (ECR-RC): Factor structure and invariance across middle childhood and early adolescence

Abstract

The recently developed short form of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Revised Child version (ECR-RC) is a promising tool to assess anxious and avoidant attachment in children and adolescents. Yet, evidence concerning its validity in middle childhood is limited. This study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the 12-item ECR-RC for both mother and father forms in a sample of 448 Italian children (50.2% girls) aged between 8 and 13 years. The scale was adapted by changing the response format to make it more understandable for young children. Psychometric proprieties of the brief ECR-RC were investigated by testing its factor structure and internal consistency, invariance across middle childhood and early adolescence, and concurrent and convergent validity. A series of confirmatory factor analyses provided support for the two-factor structure (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) of the ECR-RC, and multi-group confirmatory factor analyses supported its invariance across middle childhood and early adolescence. Older children reported significantly higher latent mean values in avoidant attachment to both parents compared to their younger counterparts. Furthermore, the questionnaire showed evidence of concurrent and convergent validity. Our results indicate that the 12-item version of the ECR-RC is a psychometrically robust instrument to assess avoidance and anxiety toward mother and father among Italian children and early adolescents.