Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Inventory Scale

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Inventory Scale

Introduction

It may be unclear whether the distress is a normal reaction or a symptom of a more serious disorder. Even experts sometimes need to rely on the results of a thorough evaluation to answer this question. The posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is only one of many possible reactions to a traumatic experience. After a trauma, some people become anxious, depressed other and many find that they have difficulty in fulfilling their responsibilities as they did before. Although most people experience some distress for a period ranging from several weeks to several months, most find then they return gradually to a normal lifestyle. However, some continue to be deeply affected by their experience several months or even several years after and may be PTSD.

The nature of a diagnostic assessment of PTSD can vary greatly depending on the use made of it and the training of the evaluator. In an interview, it can sometimes be enough to fifteen minutes specialist to get an idea of ??your traumatic experience and its impact on your life and determine whether it is necessary to use a treatment of PTSD. Specialized diagnostic assessment of PTSD may also ask at least eight sessions of one hour when we must gather information for forensic or claims due to disability. Regardless of the duration of the evaluation, you can expect to be asking you in depth the experiences that may have been traumatic for you and the symptoms they have caused. 

Further evaluations are more likely to include interviews and psychological tests detailed and structured to record your thoughts, your feelings. You can ask your spouse to provide additional information and you may have surgery to study your physiological responses to small reminders of your trauma. Whatever the details of your condition, you should always ask the specialist to perform an assessment to tell you in advance what this means and the information is expected to get to you.

Discussion

The development of PTSD measures has moved quickly from the promulgation of descriptive criteria in DSM-III (1980) to the development of several reliable and valid measures of PTSD. The most that any clinician had for measuring PTSD at the beginning of the 1980s was a few check lists, such as Figley's (1978) Vietnam Veteran's Questionnaire; Wilson and Krauss's (I985) Vietnam Stress Inventory: the Legacies of Vietnam scales (Egendorf et a1.,1981). All of these instruments received some refinement over the decade, as reported in the prospective-like study of Card (1983) using the Figley scales, and in research from the-Forgotten Warrior's Project (e.g., Wilson & Krauss, 1985).

However, none of the studies met essential criteria for adequately developing sound psychometric measures of PTSD. One such set of criteria for the development of reliable and valid assessment measures can be found in Denny, Robinowitz, and Penk (I987). In addition to the standard features of reliability and validity associated with test development, clinical research studies also need to supply diagnostic accuracy measures (e.g., hit rates, sensitivity and specificity statistics, with P'I'SD base rates ...