Original scientific paper

Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences

Milica Benić orcid.org/0009-0009-4910-4621 ; Croatian Institute for Social Work, Regional office Vinkovci

Abstract

Studies of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have made significant contributions to understanding the effects of adversity on physical and mental health in adulthood. In the paper, we discuss conceptual and measurement issues in ACE research, as well as recommendations for future research to improve ACE. PubMed, CINAHL and PsychINFO databases were searched. A total of 39 publications were selected for review. The use of retrospective data as well as ACE scores has become a common approach for considering childhood difficulties in population-based and clinical research. Alternative approaches to measuring ACEs – examining individual difficulties as well as using theoretically or empirically driven methods could have advantages over the ACE score as they may influence the understanding of their real impact on health outcomes. Therefore, more research is needed to establish a new way of conceptualizing (e.g. definitions that are internationally agreed) and measuring ACEs (e.g. weighting individual ACEs or grouping them based on similarity of experiences, taking into account severity, frequency and time). reports).
The implications of these findings would be helpful to clinicians and other practitioners, policy makers, users and the public.

Keywords

ACE points, individual approach to ACEs, methods based on theoretical and empirical data, research design (retrospective, prospective)

Hrčak ID:

319803

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/319803

Publication date:

29.12.2023.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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