Validating the Spanish Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ): A Mexican Analysis

ABSTRACT

Existing literature shows that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) lead to both physical and psychological chronic health conditions and affect individuals’ overall well-being in adulthood. This study aimed to adapt and validate the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) in Spanish in the context of the Mexican population. A cross-sectional research design was adopted based on the World Health Organization guidelines using back translation, expert evaluation, and a target population pilot application; the finalized version obtained was applied to 917 subjects, 79% of whom were women. Exploratory factor analysis yielded five factors with adequate internal consistency: Household violence, sexual abuse, family dysfunction, peer violence, and community violence. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin sample adequacy measure and Bartlett’s sphericity test were applied. The Cronbach’s alpha values for reliability were .86, .90, .72, .69, and .69 for factors one (family violence; six items), two (sexual abuse; four items), three (peer violence; seven items), four (family dysfunction; seven items), and five (community violence; seven items), respectively. Each factor was positively and significantly associated with anxiety, depression, and stress. Factors such as peer violence and family dysfunction were negatively correlated with optimism levels. This first Mexican version of ACE-IQ (ACE-IQMx) shows adequate psychometric validity for future research; however, research should continue in different Hispanic populations to confirm its validity and reliability.

KEYWORDS:

• ACE-IQ
• adverse childhood experiences
• validation
• Spanish
• México

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.