New scale links positive childhood experiences with adult mental health

Much research on childhood environments measures adversity: experiences that may make life feel unsafe, unstable or unsupported. The researchers behind this study wanted a way to measure positive experiences, too, without treating them simply as the absence of hardship.

They created the POS-DEV scale, short for Predictability, Opportunity, and Safety Dimensions of Environmental Variability. It is a retrospective scale, meaning people answer questions as adults about what they remember from earlier in life.

The scale focuses on positive experiences with caregivers, close friends and adult role models. Its three areas are psychosocial predictability, opportunity and safety. Predictability refers to having reliable expectations and support. Opportunity includes chances to connect with others and develop relationships. Safety covers feeling physically and emotionally protected.

The research was carried out in five studies. In the first two, the team used exploratory factor analysis, a statistical method that helps researchers identify which survey questions seem to measure the same underlying idea. Those studies included 406 and 316 participants, respectively, and helped reduce the number of items in the questionnaire.

A third study, with 289 participants, used confirmatory factor analysis to test the final structure of the scale across childhood and adolescent time periods. The authors reported excellent psychometric properties, meaning the tool performed well on measures used to assess whether a questionnaire is consistent and measures what it is intended to measure. They also reported construct validity, which is evidence that the scale relates to relevant concepts in expected ways.

In a fourth study of 203 participants, total scores showed excellent reliability when people completed the scale again six months later. That result suggests the overall score was stable over that period, though it does not prove that every recalled detail was exact.

The fifth study included 1,021 participants and examined how POS-DEV scores related to adult mental health after accounting for adversity. Positive experiences explained variation in adult mental health above and beyond adversity effects, according to the abstract. In plain language, participants’ reports of positive experiences added information that was not fully captured by measures of childhood adversity alone.

The supplied material does not provide effect sizes, confidence intervals or details about which mental-health outcomes changed most. It also does not describe the participants’ demographics, where they were recruited, or the exact questions used to measure adult mental health. Those missing details make it hard to judge how large the associations were or how broadly the findings apply.

This was not a trial that assigned children to receive particular kinds of support. It cannot show that a grandparent, teacher, bus driver, bedtime story or other specific experience builds resilience or prevents later mental-health problems. Because participants recalled childhood experiences and reported current mental health at the same time, the findings show an association, not cause and effect.

Still, the study offers researchers a more detailed tool for examining what may go well in childhood, including when positive experiences occur alongside adversity. Future work would need to test the scale in diverse groups and follow people over time to better understand whether these experiences predict later outcomes.