A new short version of the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale: validity among Japanese adults with and without PTSD

ABSTRACT

Background: Identifying high-risk groups for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during evacuation situations requires a valid short screening tool. The re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD are considered helpful for distinguishing those with PTSD from those without, as they are thought to be specific to PTSD, have less ambiguity for respondents, and are representative of all PTSD symptoms.

Objective: To develop a new short version of the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) comprising only re-experiencing symptom items.

Method: We used existing data (N = 169) from our previous study on the Japanese version of the PDS and the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS). The sample included both clinical outpatients (n = 106) and university students (n = 63), all of whom reported one or more traumatic experiences. We created candidate 2- and 3-item versions of the PDS and compared their psychometric characteristics against the CAPS.

Results: The best candidate (comprising items for ‘intrusive images’, ‘nightmares’, and ‘physiological reactions when reminded of the trauma’) demonstrated an area under the curve of .95, 94.8% sensitivity, 86.1% specificity for the best cut-off score of three. The candidate scale also showed a strong correlation with CAPS-evaluated severity score and internal consistency.

Conclusions: The brief re-experiencing PDS had good psychometric properties among Japanese adults with and without PTSD.

题目：新的简版创伤后诊断量表：在患有和未患有PTSD的日本成年群体中的验证

背景：在疏散情景下识别高风险的创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）群体需要一个有效简短的筛选工具。PTSD的再体验症状具有PTSD特异性、对应答者具有较少歧义、对所有PTSD症状有代表性，因此被认为有助于区分患有PTSD和未患有的人群。

目标：开发一个只包含再体验症状题目的新的简版创伤后诊断量表（PDS）。

方法：我们使用之前关于日本版PDS和临床诊断PTSD量表（CAPS）的研究中的现有数据（N=169）。样本中既有临床门诊病人（n=106）也有大学学生(n=69)，他们都报告了一个或以上创伤性经历。我们开发了2个题目和3个题目的备选PDS，并将它们的心理测量特性和CAPS进行对比。

结果：最好的备选量表（包括“闯入性图像”,”噩梦”,”被提醒创伤时的生理反应”）显示出了.95的曲线下面积（area under the curve），最好的划界分（3分）具有94.8%的敏感性和86.1%的特异性。备选量表也表现出了和CAPS症状验证分数的强相关，以及内部一致性。

结论：简版在体验PDS在患有和未患有PTSD的日本成年群体中有很好的心理测量特性。

关键词：创伤后应激障碍，筛选量表，验证，创伤后诊断量表，心理测量特性，再体验症状

KEYWORDS:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• screening scale
• validation
• Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale
• psychometric properties
• re-experiencing symptom

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Edna B. Foa for her encouragement, Yu Nakatani for her help with data collection, Keiko Shimazu for her editorial and formatting assistance, and the study participants for their assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. We also adopted item response theory (IRT) to our data to understand characteristics of each re-experiencing item. We confirmed that the set of PDS 22, 23, and 26 (3-item version chosen by the ROC analyses) or PDS 23 and 26 (2-item version chosen by the ROC analyses), thought to offer a certain level of information for low to high latent PTSD, served the purpose of screening a wide range of people. For more information, please contact Yoshiharu Kim ([email protected]).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Health and Labor Science Research Grants for Research on Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases and Mental Health from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (20300701). The funding source did not play any role in the study design; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; or in the writing of the manuscript.