Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
1, 65-73
doi: 10.7334/psicothema2014.40
Abstract
Background: Although the significant scientific advances on place
attachment literature, no instruments exist specifically developed or
adapted to residential care. Method: 410 adolescents (11 - 18 years old)
participated in this study. The place attachment scale evaluates five
dimensions: Place identity, Place dependence, Institutional bonding,
Caregivers bonding and Friend bonding. Data analysis included
descriptive statistics, content validity, construct validity (Confirmatory
Factor Analysis), concurrent validity with correlations with satisfaction
with life and with institution, and reliability evidences. The relationship
with individual characteristics and placement length was also verified.
Results: Content validity analysis revealed that more than half of the
panellists perceive all the items as relevant to assess the construct in
residential care. The structure with five dimensions revealed good fit
statistics and concurrent validity evidences were found, with significant
correlations with satisfaction with life and with the institution. Acceptable
values of internal consistence and specific gender differences were found.
Conclusions: The preliminary psychometric properties of this scale
suggest it potential to be used with youth in care.
Keywords: psychometric properties, place attachment, residential care.
Resumen
Propiedades psicomtricas de la versin portuguesa de la escala de
apego lugar para los jvenes en acogimiento residencial. Antecedentes:
a pesar de los significativos avances cientficos en la literatura del apego al
lugar, no existen instrumentos especficamente desarrollados o adaptados
para el acogimiento residencial. Mtodo: 410 adolescentes (11-18 aos)
participaron en este estudio. La escala de apego al lugar evala cinco
dimensiones: Identidad al lugar, Dependencia al lugar, Vinculacin
institucional, Vinculacin a cuidadores y Vinculacin a amigos. El anlisis
de datos incluy estadstica descriptiva, validez de contenido, validez
de constructo (anlisis factorial confirmatorio), validez concurrente
con la correlacin con la satisfaccin con la vida y con la institucin, y
evidencias de fiabilidad. La relacin con las caractersticas individuales y
duracin del acogimiento tambin fue verificada. Resultados: el anlisis
de validez de contenido revel que ms de la mitad de los miembros del
panel perciben todos los tems como relevantes para evaluar el constructo
en acogimiento residencial. La estructura con cinco dimensiones revel
buen ajuste estadstico y se encontraron evidencias de validez concurrente
con correlaciones significativas con la satisfaccin con la vida y con la
institucin. Se encontraron valores aceptables de consistencia interna,
y fueran encontradas diferencias especficas de gnero. Conclusiones:
las propiedades psicomtricas preliminares de esta escala sugieren su
potencial para ser utilizado con jvenes en acogimiento residencial.
Palabras clave: propiedades psicomtricas, apego al lugar, acogimiento
residencial.
65
66
Personal context
Place identity
and place
dependence
Social
bonding
Community context
Institutional
bonding
Environment context
Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of place attachment scale for youth in residential care
Participants
Instruments
In the present study, 410 adolescents (54% males) aged from 11
to 18 years (M= 14.70; SD= 1.82) were included, simply because
these were the participants who completed the anonymized selfreport questionnaire necessary for the present study (representing
59 institutions). These youths came from vulnerable families
characterized mainly by unemployment (43%), parental divorce/
separation (34%) and alcohol abuse (32%); and the majority of
youths was neglected (59%) and exposed, directly or indirectly, to
behaviours seriously affecting their protection (40%). Analyzing
the placement history, 64% of young people are in residential
care for the first time and the mean placement time in the present
institution is 40 months.
Procedures
This study is part of a wider project in which the sampling
procedure was: 1) All 18 district centers of the Ministry of
Welfare were contacted in order to get them to facilitate contact
with institutions across the country; 2) two of them agreed
to collaborate (i.e., they indicated 10 institutions) and others
answered that the institutions have autonomy to decide; in which
cases we contacted those institutions directly. A request for
collaboration was sent to all institutions (N = 340), from which
38 refused to participate, 249 did not reply and 53 accepted (i.e., a
positive response rate of 16%). It is important to note that, 168 of
those institutions that did not reply typically host children up to 12
years old and are designated in our context as temporary care
units (for placements no longer than six months). As the broader
project was planned to include adolescents aged from 11 to 18
years old, we hypothesize that these non-responses could derive
from the fact that these institutions did not meet the age criteria
of the participants. It is also important to note that residential
care is the most frequent (89%) out-of-home service in Portugal
(while foster care represents only 5%; Social Security Institute,
2012). These residential care settings included in the project are
not therapeutic, correctional or autonomy residences, and their
structure varies significantly (i.e., smaller and larger institutions
exist, ranging from approximately 12 to 100 young people).
Typically, a social worker, a psychologist, as well as institutional
caregivers working in shifts comprise the team of professionals in
these institutions.
In terms of sampling procedure for the participants, staff from
the institutions invited all adolescents from 11 to 18 years old
to take part in this study. Those adolescents that had previously
participated in other studies from the broader project and those
that have some significant cognitive impairment (that could
impede them filling out a self-reported measure) were excluded by
the staff from participation in this study (i.e., from a total sample
67
68
Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of place attachment scale for youth in residential care
Table 1
Description of original version, Portuguese version and back translation
Original version1
Back-translation
Portuguese version
Place identity
The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is very special to me
The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is the best place for
the activities I like to do
Nature bonding
Place dependence
Family bonding2
Friend bonding/belongingness
1
2
69
Percentage
of missing
values
Mean
Std.
deviation
Skewness
Kurtosis
0.49
03.11
1.29
-0.21
-0.96
0.73
03.43
1.15
-0.40
-0.44
0.98
03.07
1.24
-0.19
-0.83
0.49
02.95
1.23
-0.05
-0.79
1.22
03.13
1.28
-0.22
-0.88
0.98
03.38
1.13
-0.35
-0.42
0.73
03.01
1.22
-0.08
-0.83
1.46
03.44
1.15
-0.55
-0.23
0.00
03.48
1.16
-0.54
-0.36
10
0.73
03.17
1.26
-0.24
-0.87
11
0.98
03.16
1.27
-0.24
-0.93
12
0.73
03.22
1.20
-0.27
-0.69
13
0.98
03.39
1.28
-0.36
-0.80
14
1.95
03.10
1.28
-0.13
-0.92
15
1.95
03.15
1.10
-0.24
-0.32
16
1.22
02.99
1.28
-0.06
-0.98
17
2.44
03.04
1.16
-0.19
-0.55
18
0.73
02.88
1.27
-0.01
-0.91
19
0.49
03.25
1.27
-0.27
-0.81
Place identity
0.00
18.75
6.50
-0.22
-0.61
Place dependence
0.00
11.83
4.08
-0.03
-0.51
Institutional bonding
0.00
09.63
2.67
-0.44
-0.24
Caregivers bonding
0.00
13.45
3.67
-0.36
-0.05
Friends bonding
0.00
06.70
2.11
-0.39
-0.29
Table 3
Fit statistics from the confirmatory factor analysis
2(df)
2/df
GFI
CFI
PGFI
PNFI
AIC
ECVI
Model 1
551.190 (147)
3.75***
.86
.92
.082[.075;.089]
.67
.77
637.190
1.558
Model 2
402.183 (143)
2.81***
.90
.95
.067[.059;.074]
.68
.77
496.183
1.213
Model 3
741.098 (152)
4.88***
.83
.89
.097[.090;.104]
.66
.76
817.098
1.998
Model 4
460.260 (148)
3.11***
.89
.94
.072[.064;.079]
.69
.79
544.260
1.331
70
Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of place attachment scale for youth in residential care
Concurrent validity
Discussion
The concurrent validity was tested correlating place attachment
with life satisfaction and institution satisfaction. The results
revealed positive and significant correlations between the five
dimensions of place attachment with life satisfaction and institution
satisfaction (Table 4). Also, determination coefficients revealed
explained variances ranging from 17% (caregivers bonding
predicting life satisfaction) and 45% (global place attachment
predicting institution satisfaction).
Reliability
The reliability analysis revealed that all dimensions showed
adequate values of Cronbachs Alpha: Place identity (.93), place
dependence (.83), caregivers bonding (.75), friends bonding (.74)
and institutional bonding (.69). A global dimension of place
attachment revealed a Cronbachs Alpha of .95.
The relationship between place attachment and gender, age and
placement history
Analyzing the relationship between place attachment and
placement history, the results revealed significant and positive
correlations between place attachment and the length of placement
in the residential setting: Global dimension (r= .231, p<.001; R2=
.053), place identity (r= .263, p<.001; R2= .069), place dependence
(r= .181, p<.01; R2= .033), caregivers bonding (r= .113, p<.05; R2=
.013), friends bonding (r= .233, p<.001; R2= .054) and institutional
bonding (r= .189, p<.001; R2= .036). Considering the individual
characteristics, significant gender differences were found on
the place dependence (t(408)= .-2.47, p<.05; d= 0.24; F= .531,
p= .467), place identity (t(408)= -1.76, p<.10; d= 0.17; F= .091,
p= .763) and global dimension (t(408)= -1.77, p<.10; d= 0.18;
F= 2.14, p= .145). Specifically, young males (N= 221) tended to
report higher levels of place attachment than females (N= 189)
in these three dimensions: place dependence (females: M= 11.30,
SD= 3.94; males: M= 12.29, SD= 4.16), place identity (females:
M= 18.14, SD= 6.37; males: M= 19.27, SD= 6.58) and global
dimension (females: M= 58.79, SD= 15.74; males: M= 61.71, SD=
Table 4
The relationship between place attachment, satisfaction with life, and
satisfaction with the institution
Satisfaction with
life
r
R2
Satisfaction with
the institution
r
R2
Place identity
.59***
.353
.65***
.424
Place dependence
.58***
.334
.60***
.359
Institutional bonding
.51***
.258
.56***
.311
Caregivers bonding
.42***
.172
.49***
.242
Friends bonding
.52***
.271
.56***
.309
.61***
.374
.67***
.449
71
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