DOI: 10.15125/bath-00969
title: Datasets for "Autobiographical memory of care-experienced young people: Memory characteristics and associations with maltreatment and mental health"

description: This is data collected from 62 care-experienced young people aged 10-17 years old, and their social workers and carers. Included is basic demographic information for the young person and variables representing the key constructs that we were interested in measuring; maltreatment, memory and mental health. Social workers reported on maltreatment severity using Kaufman et al. (1994) rating scales, which cover: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, domestic violence (each rated on a 0-4 scale), and neglect (rated on a 0-10 scale). We have also measured posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using the Child and Adolescent Trauma Screen (CATS; Sachser et al., 2017) and depression using the 10-item Depression subscale from the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale - short version (RCADS-short; Ebesutani et al., 2012). We have both child and carer report on these measures. The memory variables were derived from the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986), which was delivered 1:1 with the young person by a trained researcher, according to standard instructions. Participants were asked to provide a specific memory in response to 10 cue words in the following order: happy, lonely, interested, hurt, surprised, sad, successful, angry, safe, and careless. These open-ended responses were then coded to identify memory specificity (as per standard coding procedures for this task), memory valence, memory importance, and the relational nature of the memory (See manuscript for further information about memory coding).
description: Participants were recruited through children’s social services within two English local authorities as part of a larger study investigating mental health among young people in the English care system (Hiller et al., 2021). 
Young people and their carers completed  questionnaires about the child's mental health, and social workers answered questions about the child's maltreatment experience. The young person also completed the autobiographical memory test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986), which was delivered 1:1 with the young person by a trained researcher, according to standard instructions. Participants were given an explanation of what a specific memory is (i.e., a single event that happens at a specific time, place and happens over a period of one day or less) and provided with practice cue words and feedback (e.g. “that’s a good example” if they gave a specific memory, or “can you tell me any more about that?” if they needed to provide more specific details). To ensure understanding of the task, the participant had to complete two correct practice rounds before progressing to the main task. Participants were then presented with 10 cue words in the following order: happy, lonely, interested, hurt, surprised, sad, successful, angry, safe, and careless. Participants were given one minute to recall and describe a specific memory in response to each cue. If they gave a non-specific memory, they were prompted to give more detail, e.g. “Can you think of anything else about that?” If participants did not provide a memory, a prompt was given after 30 seconds to encourage them to describe the first memory they could think of, e.g. “It can just be the first thing that pops into your head when you see the word___”. Up to two prompts were given for each word, before proceeding to the next cue. The task was audio recorded.
Following transcription, the content of each memory (i.e., response to each cue word) was coded by a researcher blind to both the young person’s maltreatment history and mental health. All responses were coded for: specificity, valence, importance, and the relational nature of the memory. Where the participant described more than one memory, the first complete memory was coded (McCrory et al., 2017). For specificity, memories were coded as either (0) overgeneral or (1) specific. For valence, memories were coded as: (0) positive memory, (1) neutral memory, and (2) negative memory. For memory importance, a score of 0 reflected a ‘mild’ event; 1 reflected a ‘moderate’ event; and 2 reflected a ‘major’ event. For the relational nature of a memory, a score of 0 reflects a non-interpersonal memory; 1 reflects a witnessed memory; and 2 reflects an interpersonal memory.
description: Data is fully anonymised, with the use of ID numbers for each participant instead of names.
description: SPSS is required to view the data files.