UIES-R

The Evaluation of an Urdu version of the Revised Impact of Events Scale (UIES-R) as part of EMDR Europe HAP Project in Pakistan



Abstract

The Impact of Events Scale - Revised (IES-R) is a self reporting psychometric technique designed to measure current distress following a specific, distressing life event. It is based around the three primary clusters of post trauma symptoms namely intrusively, avoidance behavior and hyper-vigilance. In 2005 a devastating earthquake occurred in Northern Pakistan. As part of a humanitarian assistance response Pakistani mental health workers were trained in EMDR which is an empirically supported psychotherapy for psychological trauma. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate an Urdu version of the IES-R (U-IES-R). Results indicated that the U-IES-R compared favorably with the original English version with good evidence of reliability and satisfactory validity and recommends its utilization for clinical, psychological trauma populations in Pakistan.

The Evaluation of an Urdu version of the Revised Impact of Events Scale (UIES-R) as part of EMDR Europe HAP Project in Pakistan

Introduction

On Saturday 8th October, 2005 shock registry of 7.6 on the Richter scale earthquake walloped northern Pakistan of a degree that it distorted mountains, wiped entire villages off the face of the earth and altered the course of water ways. According to the estimate 400,000 houses were ruined and more than 73,000 people rotten including a number of 35,000 children and also over 135,000 were injured which include children, women and old people and thousands of families their generations. Responding to this natural disaster in March 2007 the first University based EMDR Europe HAP project was launched in Ayub Medical College, Abbotabad the city closest to the epicenter of the earthquake. This ongoing, collaborative project is between EMDR Europe; the University of Birmingham, UK; Northern Health & Social Care NHS Trust, Northern Ireland, Edge Hill University Liverpool National Society for Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped Children Lahore and the Centre for Trauma Research & Psychosocial Interventions (CTRPI) Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The EMDR Training itself is a nine day modularized program, taught in three day blocks over a 9-12 month period. To date over 100 Pakistani mental health workers have now been fully trained in EMDR in Abbotabad, Rawalpindi, and Karachi. An integral aspect of the project was to encourage and develop research potential and evaluation of the project as a whole. In undertaking psychological research in Pakistan it is important to utilize psychometrics that will enable and effective comparison to be made between cultural settings. It was for this reason that the Impact of Events Scale - Revised was chosen.

The IES-R is similar to the original IES in that it is a self-reporting psychometric tactic established to monitor current distress for the particular life happening. The IES-R contains twenty two items in total in comparison with the original of fifteen items IES (Weiss & Marmar, 1997). The additional questions address hyper-arousal symptoms such as anger, irritability, and heightened startle response, difficulties in concentration, hyper-vigilance; and dissociative phenomena. The hyper-arousal method and the innovative intrusion item ...