Factor Structure of Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire for Mothers Working at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences

Maternal reflective functioning refers to a mother’s ability to understand the mental states of herself and her child. This capacity is related to the attachment styles of the mother and child, as well as the mentalizing capacity of the child and his/her behavioral problems. The Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ) was developed to evaluate the capacity of mothers.

This study aimed to determine the factor structure, structural validity, and psychometric properties of PRFQ in mothers working at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences.

The study was a methodological one conducted by structural equation modeling to investigate the factor structure of PRFQ designed by Luyten et al. in 2017. Two samples, including 183 and 120 mothers working at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in 2021, were selected using convenience sampling for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), respectively. For data collection, the participants completed PRFQ, Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI), Symptom Checklist-25 (SCL-25), RFQ, and Emotional Availability Self-Report (EA-SR). For data analysis, statistical methods, including EFA, CFA, and correlation analysis, were used in SPSS and AMOS software packages.

The Cronbach’s alpha for the total questionnaire was equal to 0.6. The exploratory factor analysis showed that PRFQ had a 3-factor structure with a shared variance of 38.03%. Item 11 loaded on all factors, and items 6 and 18 loaded on the pre-mentalization factor. The developed model was approved by removing item 11 and loading items 6 and 18 on the pre-mentalization factor in CFA (comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.93, normed fit index [NFI] = 0.82, Tucker-Lewis index [TLI] = 0.92, and root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.05). The results also revealed that the developed questionnaire had adequate concurrent and predictive validity.

Overall, the 3-factor structure of PRFQ for mothers showed adequate validity and reliability