Testing the Factor Structure of the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) in African Community Samples from Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test the factorial structure of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) as outlined in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in three African community samples using the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ). Four models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis based on a total sample of 2,524 participants, and the two-factor second-order model, representing PTSD and Disturbances in Self-organization (DSO), was the best fitting model. The factors were validated using demographic and trauma-related variables, supporting the use of the ITQ for English-speaking participants in these African countries.

Keywords:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Complex PTSD
• International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ)
• Africa

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcin Owczarek

Marcin Owczarek is a doctoral researcher in the School of Psychology at Ulster University in Northern Ireland. His research interests are in the area of traumatic stress, nosology, and latent variable modeling.

Menachem Ben-Ezra

Menachem Ben-Ezra is a professor in the School of Social Work at Ariel University, Israel. His interests are in the areas of psychological trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), gerontology, psychiatric epidemiology, behavioral psychiatry, and history of psychological trauma prior to the 19th century.

Thanos Karatzias

Thanos Karatzias is a professor in the School of Health and Social Care at Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom. He has spent his entire clinical and academic career working in the field of psychological trauma. His special interests are in the effects and treatment of psychological trauma on physical and mental health, on prison populations, and on people with learning disabilities.

Philip Hyland

Philip Hyland is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Maynooth University, Ireland. His primary research area is traumatic stress studies, particularly in understanding how to most accurately describe and measure psychological responses to trauma, the psychosocial risk factors for different types of traumatic response, and the long-term outcomes of traumatic exposure and traumatic responses.

Frédérique Vallieres

Frédérique Vallieres is an assistant professor in Global Health and Psychology in the Center for Global Health and the School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her research focuses on the application of psychology to global health, with a focus on global mental health and human resources for health management.

Mark Shevlin

Mark Shevlin is a professor in the School of Psychology at Ulster University in Northern Ireland. His research interests are in the areas of PTSD and complex PTSD, psychometrics, and multivariate modeling.