Parent-Child Relationship Scale (P-CRS): A valid and clinically sensitive tool for assessing the parent-child relationship

The present study measured the efficacy of the Parent-Child Relationship Scale (P-CRS) in assessing the relationship between parents and children. The aims of the study were to explore how the scale scores change in relation to age and sex of the children, evaluate its ability to capture relational difficulties, and investigating its usefulness to assess the parent-child relationship in the context of certain psychopathological conditions. A total of 322 clinicians rated 542 mother-child dyads (92% Italian, 8% other nationality). The clinical group was comprised of 267 children with confirmed clinical conditions. The control group was comprised of 275 children with typical development, rated by clinicians in their private offices after four to five evaluative sessions. Descriptive statistics were captured and ANOVAs and linear regression analyses were performed to investigate in both groups the efficacy of the scale in assessing the parent-child relationship. Finally, to test P-CRS accuracy, optimal cutoff scores for each subscale were computed using the ROC method. The findings provide evidence for the P-CRS ability to capture relational difficulties in both groups, showing its utility as screening tool. Thus, the results support that P-CRS can be used for exploring how different relationship patterns can occur in different clinical conditions.