Dimensional assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder in DSM-5

Richard LeBeau; Emily Mischel; Heidi Resnick; Dean Kilpatrick; Matthew Friedman; Michelle Craske

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2014.03.032

Dimensional assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder in DSM-5

Psychiatry Res. 2014 Aug 15;218(1-2):143-7. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2014.03.032. Epub 2014 Apr 5.

Authors

Richard LeBeau¹, Emily Mischel², Heidi Resnick³, Dean Kilpatrick³, Matthew Friedman⁴, Michelle Craske²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA. Electronic address: rlebeau@ucla.edu.
² Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
³ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, 67 President Street, MSC 861, 2nd Fl. IOP South Building, Charleston, SC 29425, USA.
⁴ Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology & Toxicology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and National Center for PTSD, VA Medical Center, 215 North Main Street, White River Junction, VT 05009, USA.

PMID: 24746390
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2014.03.032

Abstract

The present paper describes the development of the National Stressful Events Survey for PTSD-Short Scale (NSESSS-PTSD), a new self-report scale for PTSD that is brief (9 items), free of copyright restrictions, and consistent with DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Study 1 describes the development of the NSESSS-PTSD scale items, which were reduced from a larger pool of items that were administered to a subsample of individuals with probable DSM-5 PTSD diagnoses from a large national sample. The resultant scale included items from each criterion and demonstrated high internal consistency. Study 2 evaluates the psychometric properties of the NSESSS-PTSD in a trauma-exposed non-clinical sample. Strong psychometric properties were observed in the sample, including convergent validity (through comparison to the DSM-IV Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist), internal consistency, and the presence of a single dominant factor. Limitations of the present studies are discussed and specific recommendations for the next steps in the validation process are provided.

Keywords: DSM-5; Diagnosis; PTSD; Scale construction.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders*
Female
Humans
Life Change Events*
Male
Middle Aged
Psychometrics
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / diagnosis*
Young Adult