Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short-Form (CTQ-SF)

The CTQ-SF is a self-report instrument that assesses childhood maltreatment before the age of 18 (53). It contains 28 items that can be summarized in five subscales of emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect and physical neglect. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from never true to very often true (e.g., “When I was growing up people in my family said hurtful or insulting things to me”). The German version of the CTQ-SF demonstrated good internal consistency as evidenced by Cronbach's α = 0.94 (54). The CTQ-SF was completed at baseline.