In summary, this study used factor analysis to maximize the information available from a detailed assessment of correlated childhood traumatic events to develop a dimensional, robust and broad measure of childhood adversity. Similar measures may be constructed from data in any investigation in which the assessment of each form of childhood trauma is adequate for inclusion in factor analyses. Measures such as the CTF provide increased power and reduce problems of multicollinearity. Future work will test measurement invariance of the CTF across samples in other countries and those more representative of the general population (i.e., with lower prevalence of childhood trauma).
