Validation of the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale–Short Form in a Bereaved Sample

Abstract

The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (ISLES) is an assessment of meaning made of stress that has been used successfully with bereaved individuals and other vulnerable populations. Drawing upon information from 741 bereaved respondents, the present study tests the validity of the ISLES–Short Form (ISLES-SF), which is a 6-item version of the original 16-item measure. Tests of concurrent and incremental validity yielded highly similar patterns of results for the full ISLES and ISLES-SF, supporting the use of this briefer version of the scale. Results also highlighted the unique association (controlling for demographics, circumstances of the death, and prolonged grief symptoms) between greater meaning made of loss and higher levels of mental and physical health. These findings add to a growing body of literature that supports theoretical models that view meaning-making as a crucial determinant of adjustment to loss among many grievers.

Notes

Note: ISLES = Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale; SF = Short Form; C = Comprehensibility; FW = Footing in the World. Gender, race/ethnicity, relationship to the deceased, and cause of death were dichotomous variables, coded as 0 = men and 1 = women, 0 = Caucasian and 1 = racial/ethnic minority, 0 = extended family/friend and 1 = immediate family, and 0 = natural/other causes and 1 = violent causes, respectively.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Note: A sum of all items can be taken to compute a total Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale–Short Form (ISLES-SF) score. Likewise, Items 1, 2, and 3 can be summed to compute the Comprehensibility-SF subscale, and Items 4, 5, and 6 can be summed to compute the Footing in the World-SF subscale. The portion of the instructions in parentheses may be altered to make the measure applicable to different groups of interest. The numbering of items here does not correspond to the numbering used for the full version of the ISLES (Holland et al., 2010).