The current report hypothesizes that the common variance derived from three distinct types of childhood trauma (i.e., CSA, CPA, and parental partner abuse [PPA]) provides a robust continuous measure of their shared liability. We use CFA to create three first‐order factors, each a continuous measure of a specific form of childhood trauma, and a higher order childhood trauma factor (CTF) derived from their common variance. The availability of childhood trauma exposure data collected with the Christchurch Trauma Assessment (Fergusson et al. 1989, 1996a,b; Fergusson and Lynskey 1997) from adult participants in three large Australian studies enabled the use of one sample to develop the CTF, the second to replicate it, and the third to demonstrate that similar association results are observed with application of factor loadings from the primary sample. To demonstrate the CTF's predictive validity, we examine its association with psychiatric and substance use disorders in the three samples. In post hoc analyses, we show that CTF scores are significantly correlated with measures of other forms of childhood maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse and neglect) not included in this measure.
