The reliability and validity of the Invalidating Childhood Environment Scale (ICES) – Turkish Version

Objective: Invalidating Environment Scale (ICES) was developed by Mountford et al. (1) in order to retrospectively assess the childhood experiences of invalidation. As it is known that there is not such a tool that assesses the invalidating environment in Turkish sample, the current study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the scale and to adopt it to Turkish language. Method: The scale was first translated into Turkish and after that, back translation was made into the original language which is English. 303 university students participated in the study. Along with the ICES, EMBU (Egna Minnen Barndoms Uppfostran; My memories of upbringing) and Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale were also administered. Results: According to the results of the explanatory factor analysis both mother and father forms of the scale are found to support one factor structure just as in the original scale. When the results of the confirmatory factor analysis were examined, it was seen that the obtained values were acceptable for both forms. It was found that ICES mother form has positive and low associations with EMBU mother over protection and Rosenberg Self esteem scales, while it has also positive and moderate association with EMBU mother rejection subscale. On the other hand ICES mother form was found to be negatively and highly associated with EMBU mother warmth subscale. When it comes to ICES father form, the same correlations with the mother form were found. According to the results of the current study Chronbach’s alpha coefficients of ICES for mother and father forms were found as .84 and .87 respectively. Conclusion: The findings of the current study show that Turkish version of the Invalidating Environment Scale has acceptable levels of reliability and validity.