Validating the caregiving experiences questionnaire (CEQ) in a Turkish setting: Understanding attachment and parental care in diverse contexts

Abstract

Despite the universal significance of secure attachments, differences exist in parental responses to children’s signals of need across cultures. While much research has focused on Western countries, there is a growing recognition of the need to explore cultural variations in parental ideologies and caregiving practices. However, limited assessment tools exist for evaluating caregiving experiences, particularly in non-Western contexts. This present design study aims to explore the Turkish validity of the Caregiving Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ), specifically tailored to assess the self-reported caregiving experiences of parents with young children within the attachment system. The Turkish-CEQ was administered to 339 Turkish mothers with children attending preschools. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was employed to assess the congruence of the Turkish data. The results showed that the CEQ is a relevant construct in Turkish culture. The CEQ successfully adapted to Turkish, resulting in a questionnaire comprising 34 items organized into four factors namely maintaining warm parental bond, suffering from separation concerns, struggling with parenting challenges, and imposing emotional parentification on the child. The internal consistency of each factor demonstrates satisfactory reliability, with Cronbach Alpha coefficients ranging between 0.71 and 0.80. Finally, we assessed the criterion validity of the CEQ by examining its relationships with the Parental Burnout Assessment and Parenting Stress Scale. The results support the criterion validity of the Turkish-CEQ. The study provides Turkish researchers with a new instrument for assessing caregiving experiences and paves the way for future cross-cultural studies on caregiving experiences among parents from diverse backgrounds in Turkey.