THE VALIDATION OF A SELF-REPORT MEASURE OF POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER - THE POSTTRAUMATIC DIAGNOSTIC SCALE

The present article reports on the development and validation of a sel f-report measure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the Posttrau matic Diagnostic Scale (PTDS), that yields both a PTSD diagnosis accor ding to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. ; American Psychiatric Association, 1994; DSM-IV) criteria and a measu re of PTSD symptom severity. Two-hundred forty-eight participants who had experienced a wide variety of traumas (e.g., accident, fire, natur al disaster, assault, combat) were administered the PTSD module of the Structured Clinical Interview (SCID; Spitzer, Williams, Gibbons, & Fi rst, 1990), the PTDS, and scales measuring trauma-related psychopathol ogy. The PTDS demonstrated high internal consistency and test-retest r eliability, high diagnostic agreement with SCID, and good sensitivity and specificity. The satisfactory validity of the PTDS was further sup ported by its high correlations with other measures of trauma-related psychopathology. Therefore, the PTDS appears to be a useful tool for s creening and assessing current PTSD in clinical and research settings.