Perception Scale of Parenting Communication (COMPA): Development

The main goal of this study was the presentation of the psychometric characteristics of the Scale of Parenting Communication (COMPA): parental version, adolescent version (12-16 years old) and children version (7-11 years old). This instrument has the purpose of evaluating the percepction of parents and children regarding their communication. The sample was composed of 803 parents and 619 children sampled from a Portuguese population. The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed a five factor structure for the parental version (emotional support/affective expression, α: .821; parental availability to communication, α: .732; metacommunication, α: .725; parental confidence/sharing, α: .753; children confidence/sharing α: .615) and for the adolescent version (parental availability to communication, α: .865; children confidence/sharing, α: .873; emotional support/affective expression, α: .838; metacommunication, α: .805; negative communication patterns, α: .650) and a two factor structure for the children version (parental availability to communication, α: .842; emotional support/affective expression, α: .784). This factorial structure was confirmed by structural equations analysis. The levels of internal consistency of COMPA seem to be appropriate for research and clinical use.