Scale of Parental Playfulness Attitude (PaPA): Psychometric Properties With Latino Caregivers in the United States

Importance: Parent-child play is a beneficial and meaningful co-occupation. Therapists who want to optimize parent-child play for Latino-and Latina-American dyads need valid, reliable measures to assess caregiver playfulness in addition to preexisting measures of child playfulness.Objective: To evaluate data collected from Latino-American caregivers with the Scale of Parental Playfulness Attitude (PaPA), a 28-item parent self-report to determine its construct validity, internal reliability, and cross-cultural validity.Design: Quantitative exploratory design applying a latent-trait psychometric model. Setting: Online survey. Participants: Convenience sample of 50 Spanish-speaking parents from the mainland United States recruited via snowballing (88% mothers, ages 24-47 yr; M = 34.8 yr; 82% first-generation Americans). The inclusion criteria were age >= 18 yr; literate in Spanish; primary caregiver to a child age 2.5-7 yr. Data from an existing sample of 50 parents dwelling in Puerto Rico were used to examine cross-cultural validity. Outcomes and Measures: Rasch analysis demonstrated evidence for adequate construct validity: positive point -measure correlations, 93% fit of items, logical item hierarchy, and good progression of the rating scale. Range and mean for parent playfulness exceeded those of the items; principal-components analysis revealed one contrast of 4.46 eigenvalues, bringing unidimensionality into question. Evidence suggested excellent internal reliability (person -reliability index = 0.85, strata = 3.55) and good cross-cultural validity (25 of 28 items formed a similar hierarchy for parents dwelling in the mainland United States and Puerto Rico).Conclusions and Relevance: Although the PaPA can be used to assess caregiver playfulness with culturally diverse Latino-American dyads, further research is required.

Automated summary

The study evaluated the construct validity, internal reliability, and cross-cultural validity of a parental playfulness attitude assessment scale in Latino-American caregivers. The results showed that the scale had adequate validity and reliability, and it was also valid across different cultural backgrounds.