Prevalence and timing of childhood adversity: Test–retest reliability of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Questionnaire in a mid-aged, female cohort.

OBJECTIVE: The developmental timing of childhood adversity is a critical risk factor for negative health outcomes. Specifically, whether adverse events occurred before or after puberty is relevant to health outcomes due to the different developmental landscapes between these periods. Furthermore, women have unique health risks due to sex differences in pubertal timing, hormones, and types of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) relative to males. However, a prospective determination of childhood adversity's impact on adult health outcomes is difficult because of the decades between exposure and onset of disease. Therefore, we sought to determine the test-retest reliability of retrospectively recalled ACEs and the timing of such events in relation to menarche (prepubertal vs. postpubertal), among women in their 50s and 60s. METHOD: = 106) in the Penn Ovarian Aging Study, first by phone and second during a home interview approximately 1 year later. Age of menarche and age at onset of ACEs were documented at each assessment. RESULTS: Kappa values for individual ACEs indicated strong test-retest reliability of the ACE Questionnaire between the two assessments. There were no significant differences between either the mean ACE total scores or prepubertal ACE scores between the two assessments. Overall, women demonstrated consistency in their retrospective reporting of early childhood adversity in total and with respect to onset of experiences in relation to menarche. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that investigators can rely on retrospective reports when studying the relationship between childhood adversity and adult health outcomes for midlife women. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).