Revision, reliability and validity testing, and development of normative data of Inventory of Alienation Toward Parents in military personnel
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Objective To revise the Inventory of Alienation Toward Parents (IAP) and test its reliability and validity in a military population in order to provide a scientific tool for assessing the level and grade of parent-child alienation among military personnel. Methods Whole-cluster stratified random sampling was used to subject 8 641 service members from 8 Army units. Then all participants were surveyed with 18-item adolescent IAP, Beck Depression Inventory-Ⅱ, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 26.0 were used to perform item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess reliability and validity. Subsequently, our revised 16-item version of IAP was employed to develop means, percentiles, cut-off scores, and category norms. Results ①Items 3 and 12 were deleted in item analysis. ②EFA extracted the original communication and emotional distance factors; CFA indicated that the two-factor model had good fitness, with the mother-child alienation scale: χ2/df=4.248, comparative fit index (CFI)=0.962, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI)= 0.929, root mean square error of approximation(RMSEA)= 0.028, standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR)=0.023; while the father-child alienation scale: χ2/df=5.41, CFI=0.939, TLI=0.901, RMSEA=0.032, SRMR=0.044. ③The internal consistency reliability of the total IAP was good (0.744~0.888). ④The total IAP score and scores of the mother-child and father-child subscales were positively correlated with depression and anxiety (r=0.395~0.493, P<0.01). ⑤ The average total IAP score for military personnel was 17.27±4.21, and the scores of mother-child alienation and father-child alienation were 8.64±2.26 and 8.62±2.43, respectively. With percentiles of P75 and P90 as the cut-off points, the total IAP score can be stratified into 3 levels, that is, normal (≤16), moderate (17~19), and severe (≥20). Then, additional category norms were developed based on demographic characteristics. Conclusion Our revised 16-item military version of IAP shows good reliability and validity. A preliminary and representative norm is developed primarily, and can be used to assess the level and grade of military parental alienation.
Authors: TAN Jieying, TAN Jieying, SUN Xiaoxiao, DAI Zongpei
Institutions: Army Medical University, Chongqing University
Language: English
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6887520098