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. 2025 Aug;37(3):1190-1199.
doi: 10.1017/S0954579424001032. Epub 2024 Jun 4.

Agreement between retrospective and prospective assessments of childhood abuse revisited

Marissa D Nivison  1 , Clarissa R Filetti  1 , Elizabeth A Carlson  1 , Deborah B Jacobvitz  2 , Glenn I Roisman  1
Affiliations

Agreement between retrospective and prospective assessments of childhood abuse revisited

Marissa D Nivison et al. Dev Psychopathol. 2025 Aug.

Abstract

A recent meta-analytic review demonstrated that retrospective assessments of childhood abuse acquired during adulthood - typically via self-report - demonstrate weak agreement with assessments of maltreatment gathered prospectively. The current report builds on prior findings by investigating the agreement of prospectively documented abuse from birth to age 17.5 years in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation with retrospective, Adult Attachment Interview-based assessments of childhood abuse administered at ages 19 and 26 years. In this sample, an agreement between prospective and retrospective assessments of childhood abuse was considerably stronger (κ = .56) than was observed meta-analytically. Retrospective assessments identified prospectively documented sexual abuse somewhat better than physical abuse, and the retrospective approach taken here was more sensitive to identifying abuse perpetrated by primary caregivers compared to non-caregivers based on prospective records.

Keywords: Adult Attachment Interview; child abuse; early caregiving; longitudinal; prospective; retrospective.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests. None.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Overall abuse prospectively documented from birth to 17.5 years.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Overall abuse retrospectively reported at ages 19 and 26.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
(a) Overall agreement between retrospective and prospective abuse. N based on individuals who were identified as having experienced physical and/or sexual abuse at either/both retrospective and prospective assessments (n = 82). (b) Agreement between retrospective and prospective assessments of sexual abuse. N based on individuals who were identified as having experienced sexual abuse at either/both the retrospective and prospective assessments (n = 37). (c) Agreement between retrospective and prospective assessments of physical abuse. N based on individuals who were identified as having experienced physical abuse at either/both the retrospective and prospective assessments (n = 66).
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