The underlying dimensions of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms and their relations with anxiety and depression in a sample of adolescents exposed to an explosion accident

ABSTRACT

Background: A large number of empirical studies pertaining to the latent dimensions of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms have accumulated. However, there is still a lack of studies specific to youths.

Objective: This study sought to investigate the latent dimensions of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms in a sample of adolescents exposed to an explosion accident.

Method: Participants were 836 students (407 females and 428 males). Self-reported measures including the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 and the anxiety and depression subscales of the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale were administered to participants. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was implemented to test competing factor models.

Results: A seven-factor model composed of intrusion, avoidance, negative affect, anhedonia, externalizing behaviours, anxious arousal and dysphoric arousal factors emerged as the best fitting model, and PTSD’s factors displayed distinguishable correlations with external measures of anxiety and depression.

Conclusions: The findings provide and extend empirical evidence supporting the newly refined seven-factor hybrid model of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms, and have implications for further trauma-related clinical practice and research.

KEYWORDS:

• Confirmatory factor analysis
• DSM-5
• PTSD
• adolescents
• man-made disaster
• China

RESPONSIBLE EDITOR Cherie Armour, University of Ulster, United Kingdom

RESPONSIBLE EDITOR Cherie Armour, University of Ulster, United Kingdom

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by by the External Cooperation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 153111KYSB20160036), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31271099, 31471004), the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative (No. 2016VEA019), and the CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology (No. KLMH2013K06).