Efstratopoulou, MOpoku, MPTsingilis, NNur, SGyimah, EMMoustafa, A2026-05-212026-05-212025-10-16Children and Youth Services Review, ISSN: 0190-7409 (Print); 1873-7765 (Online), Elsevier, 179, 108628-108628. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.1086280190-74091873-7765http://hdl.handle.net/10292/21179Low-income countries, such as Bangladesh, Egypt and Nepal, are experiencing enormous social problems, such as poverty, violence and extremism, which can expose children to trauma. However, the literature on parental awareness of trauma-informed approaches is very limited, possibly due to the lack of a reliable instrument for continuous data collection on parental knowledge regarding the onset of trauma and the best management strategies. The overarching aim of this study was to thoroughly validate the parental trauma identification and management scale (PTIMS), a newly developed tool for trauma-informed approaches, using data collected from parents in three low-income countries. A total of 750 parents from three low-income countries (Bangladesh, n = 300; Egypt, n = 205; Nepal, n = 245) shared experiences of poverty and social problems that could increase their children's vulnerability to trauma. The parents completed the PTIMS, which was translated into the first language of each of the studied countries and subjected to validation using item response theory. Multivariate analysis of variance was computed to understand the differences between participants. Rasch analysis yielded appropriate psychometric properties for the PTIMS. For example, the outfit mean square and infit mean square values of all 33 items ranged from 0.878 to 1.124 and from 0.910 to 1.096, respectively. The multivariate analysis of variance revealed differences between participants in some demographic variables, such as country, age, employment status and school type. The PTIMS is a valid instrument for gathering surveillance data on trauma awareness among parents, who are important stakeholders in efforts to create trauma-informed schools in low-income contexts.© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You are not required to obtain permission to reuse this article.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/4404 Development Studies44 Human SocietyPhysical Injury - Accidents and Adverse EffectsBehavioral and Social ScienceBasic Behavioral and Social ScienceSocial Determinants of HealthPediatric Research Initiative1 No Poverty1402 Applied Economics1607 Social WorkSocial Work4409 Social work4410 SociologyParentsTraumaSchoolBangladeshEgyptNepalJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108628