Psychometric properties of seven self-report measures of posttraumatic stress disorder in college students with mixed civilian trauma exposure

doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2008.02.002

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Volume 22, Issue 8, December 2008, Pages 1393-1402

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2008.02.002 Get rights and content

Abstract

In this study psychometric properties of seven self-report measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were compared. The seven scales evaluated were the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), the PTSD Checklist (PCL), the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS), the Civilian Mississippi Scale (CMS), the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), the Penn Inventory for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (Penn), and the PK scale of the MMPI-2 (PK). Participants were 239 (79 male and 160 female) trauma-exposed undergraduates. All seven measures exhibited good test–retest reliability and internal consistency. The PDS, PCL and DTS demonstrated the best convergent validity; the IES-R, PDS, and PCL demonstrated the best discriminant validity; and the PDS, PCL, and IES-R demonstrated the best diagnostic utility. Overall, results most strongly support the use of the PDS and the PCL for the assessment of PTSD in this population.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 239 undergraduates (79 male, 160 female) enrolled in psychology courses at a large Southeastern university who participated for course extra credit. The ethnic distribution of the sample was 84% Caucasian, 12% African American, and 4% other ethnicity. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 29 years (M = 19.4, S.D. = 1.59). All participants reported at least one stressful event that met Criterion A of the DSM-IV PTSD diagnostic criteria (APA, 1994). Participants were divided into

Test–retest reliability

Test–retest results are presented in Table 1. Good test–retest reliability was found for all self-report measures in the study, with all but three measures (IES-R, BAI, and CCL-A) obtaining a test–retest correlation of .80 or higher.

Internal consistency

Results of the internal consistency analysis are presented in Table 2. All self-report measures exhibited high internal consistency. Alphas ranged from .88 to .95, and median item-total correlations ranged from .39 to .63 for the PTSD measures, and .53 to .69 for

Discussion

In this study the psychometric properties of seven self-report measures of PTSD were compared in a sample of college students with mixed civilian trauma exposure. Consistent with previous research, all of the PTSD measures exhibited excellent reliability, as did the self-report measures of depression, anxiety and social phobia. Consistency of the measures across occasions was indicated by high test–retest correlations, and internal consistency was indicated by high alpha coefficients and

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Psychometric properties of seven self-report measures of posttraumatic stress disorder in college students with mixed civilian trauma exposure

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Test–retest reliability

Internal consistency

Discussion

Behavior Therapy

Differentiating anxiety and depression: a test of the cognitive content specificity hypothesis

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Beck Anxiety Inventory

Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition

An inventory for measuring depression

Archives of General Psychiatry

The development of a clinician-administered PTSD scale

Journal of Traumatic Stress

After the crash: assessment and treatment of motor vehicle accident survivors

Trauma Symptom Inventory

Davidson Trauma Scale

Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale

Penn Inventory for posttraumatic stress disorder: psychometric properties

Psychological Assessment

Psychometric properties of the embedded and stand-alone versions of the MMPI-2 Keane PTSD Scale

Assessment

Impact of Event Scale: a measure of subjective stress

Psychosomatic Medicine

Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: three studies in reliability and validity

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Empirical development of an MMPI subscale for the assessment of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology