Abstract

Purpose: The study reports a survey of instruments for the Adult Attachment evaluation used in Italy. The instruments reported in this study are: the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI - George, Kaplan and Main, 1985); the interview of Carli and Mantovani (1994), the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI - Parker, Tupling and Brown, 1979), the Adult Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ - Hazan and Shaver, 1987, 1995); the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ - Feeney, Noller and Hanrahan, 1994); the Questionario di Attaccamento fra Adulti (QAA-SC - Salvo and Cusinato, 1996); the Questionario sull'Attaccamento Attuale (QAA-L - Lorenzini, Mancini and Sassaroli, 1985); the Egna Minnen Betraffende Uppfostran - My memories of upbringing (EMBU - Perris, Jacobsson, Lindström, von Knorring and Perris, 1980). Sources: The instruments of evaluation are been included in the series on the basis of the presence in the Italian literature of notices of their use in the last ten years. The study considers 31 Italian psychological, psychiatric and psychotherapeutic journals and the Psyc-Lit and Med-Line data-bases. Conclusions: epistemological and methodological (statistics) deficiencies have been pointed out in the majority of the instruments reported in literature. On the basis of the available data, we developed some comparative considerations useful to Italian researchers called to choose one of the various evaluation instruments in the adult attachment.