We dichotomized the maltreatment scales for two reasons: their skewed distributions, and the need to summarize them in an easily interpretable manner. The scales were classified as positive as follows. (1) Sexual abuse: respondents reported ever experiencing sexual bodily contact with their caregiver. (2) Physical abuse: caregivers ever injured respondents, or often used physical force against them. (3) Emotional abuse: caregivers verbally abused or threatened respondents at least fairly often, or respondents feared their caregiver would injure them at least sometimes. (4) Physical neglect: respondents at least sometimes were made to do age-inappropriate chores, left unsupervised before age 10, not given adequate medical treatment, or went without basic necessities or food while their caregiver did not. (5) Emotional neglect: reverse scoring of items asking if someone in the respondents’ family wanted them to be a success, made them feel important, believed in them, was supportive or if the family was close-knit. Emotional neglect was classified as positive if at least two items were scored never or almost never.
