THE REVISED CIVILIAN MISSISSIPPI SCALE FOR PTSD - RELIABILITY, VALIDITY, AND CROSS-LANGUAGE STABILITY

Examined in two studies the psychometric properties of a revised 30-it em version of the civilian form of the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Re lated Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) developed by Keane, Caddell , and Taylor (1988). Study 1, whose sample was composed of 37 bilingua l adults who had experienced a variety of traumatic events, was undert aken primarily to examine the linguistic equivalence of a Spanish tran slation of the scale. High cross-language stability was demonstrated a nd both English and Spanish versions showed high internal consistency. Study 2, which used a sample of 404 victims of Hurricane Andrew, prov ided additional evidence of scale reliability and also showed that the scale correlates in meaningful ways with known traumatic stressors. T ogether the results indicate that the scale is applicable to different populations and events and constitutes a valid and reliable self-repo rt measure of PTSD.