A measure of caregiving daughters' attachment to elderly mothers.

Although attachment to a parent in adulthood remains a controversial topic, a measure is needed to assess the strength of adult daughters'current attachment to their elderly mothers. Representing 4 domains of the attachment concept (seeking security or comfort, distress upon separation, joy upon reunion, and feelings of love), a 16-item Adult Attachment Scale was developed and field-tested. Internal consistency reliability (alpha) was.95, and 1-year stability was.73. Some evidence for the validity of the measure is presented