Validation of the Korean version of the impact of event scale-revised in disaster victims using the Rasch model

ABSTRACT

This study is to verify the validity of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) by reflecting the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) structure and gender differences of disaster victims with the Rasch model. The analysis is based on 2,253 disaster victims in South Korea. Results reveal that items on sleep problems are inappropriate in accounting for the concept of this scale. The difficulty of the item was highly recognised by disaster victims. It was found that there were items that functioned differently by gender. Further studies need to verify the items considering cultural and disaster-related contexts for adjusting the difficulty of the items.

KEYWORDS:

• Disaster victims
• IES-R
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• validation
• Rasch model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kyeong-Won Lee

Kyeong-Won Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Welfare at Halla University. His research interests include disaster, trauma, resilience and scale validation.

Hyun Lee

Hyun Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Welfare at Mokwon University. His research interests include trauma, loss, PTSD, adaptability, and Resilience.