Abstract

Background: The Parenting Style Questionnaire-Revised (PSQ-R) is widely used to assess parenting behaviours across authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive domains. However, its reliability and validity have not been established in Nigerian adolescent populations.

Aim: To assess the reliability and validity of the PSQ-R among secondary school students in Calabar, Nigeria.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 84 adolescents aged 12–18 years in a private secondary school. Participants completed the PSQ-R alongside the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Index of Family Relations (IFR), and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, while convergent validity was evaluated using Pearson correlation and group comparisons via independent samples t-tests.

Results: The mean age was 14.55 years (SD = 1.42), with a slight female majority (53.6%). The PSQ-R showed high internal consistency for the Authoritative (α = 0.880) and Authoritarian (α = 0.835) subscales, and moderate consistency for the Permissive subscale (α = 0.690). Deleting a low-performing item improved the revised Permissive subscale (α = 0.700). The Authoritarian subscale correlated positively with externalising behaviours (r = 0.350, p = 0.005) and total SDQ scores (r = 0.312, p = 0.01), but not significantly with IFR (r = 0.128) or MSPSS (r = –0.113). The Authoritative subscale showed negative correlations with internalising (r = –0.287, p = 0.01), externalising (r = –0.366, p = 0.002), total difficulties (r = –0.356, p = 0.004), and IFR (r = –0.676, p < 0.001), and a positive correlation with MSPSS (r = 0.416, p < 0.001). The original and revised Permissive subscales showed no significant correlations with SDQ, IFR, or MSPSS. Adolescents with internalising or externalising symptoms scored significantly lower on the Authoritative subscale (p = 0.01 and p = 0.002), while those with externalising symptoms scored higher on the revised Permissive subscale (p = 0.02).

Conclusion: The PSQ-R demonstrated good reliability and construct validity among Nigerian adolescents, particularly for the Authoritative and Authoritarian subscales. Findings support its use in adolescent mental health and parenting research in Nigeria. Further studies involving larger and more diverse samples are recommended.

Key words: Key words: Parenting styles, Adolescents, Nigeria