ARTICLES
Child Stress Disorders Checklist: A Measure of ASD and PTSD in Children

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To assess the psychometric properties of the Child Stress Disorders Checklist (CSDC), a 36-item observer-report instrument that measures acute stress and posttraumatic symptoms in children.

Method

The CSDC was administered to parents of 43 children with acute burns and 41 children who had experienced a traffic crash. This instrument was also administered to the burned children's primary nurse to estimate interrater reliability. The CSDC was completed again by parents of burned children, 2 days and 3 months later. Convergent validity was determined by correlating scores on the CSDC with scores on instruments of known validity for assessing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children. Concurrent validity was determined through an examination of the relationship between CSDC scores and an index of trauma severity (percentage of body surface area burned). Discriminant validity was assessed by administering the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL): it was hypothesized that PTSD symptoms would be more closely related to the PTSD scale of the CBCL than the Thought Problems scale of the CBCL.

Results

The CSDC has reliable and valid psychometric properties.

Conclusions

The CSDC, an observer-report instrument of ASD and PTSD in children, has important utility in clinical and research settings.

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Acute stress disorder (ASD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) represent some of the core features of a child's reactions to traumatic events (Daviss et al., 2000;Green et al., 1991;McLeer et al., 1988;Pynoos et al., 1987;Sack et al., 1993;Stoddard et. al, 1989). Symptoms of both disorders

RESULTS

The mean CSDC total score for the sample of acutely burned children and those who experienced a traffic crash was 11.11 (SD 9.97) and 7.3 (SD 8.15), respectively. The mean CSDC total score for the burned children 3 months after discharge was 8.2 (SD 10.95). The mean CSDC scores for each subscale at the acute phase for each group and the mean subscale scores for the burn sample at 3 months are presented in Table 2.

The internal consistency of the symptom items, for the sample as a whole (n = 84)

DISCUSSION

This study examines the psychometric properties of the CSDC (Saxe, 1997), a recently developed observer-rated measure of posttraumatic stress symptoms, and the first instrument to assess acute stress symptoms in children.

As used in this study with two subsamples, children with burns and those who experienced a traffic crash, the CSDC appears to have promising psychometric properties in both the acute and nonacute context.

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    Supported by NIMH grant R01 MH57370 and SAMHSA grant U79 SM54305 to Dr. Saxe. Portions of this work were supported by MCHB grant R40 MC 00138 03 to Dr. Kassam-Adams and Dr. Flaura Winston.

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