Premium
Assessing traumatic event exposure: General issues and preliminary findings for the Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire
Author(s) -
Goodman Lisa A.,
Corcoran Carole,
Turner Kiban,
Yuan Nicole,
Green Bonnie L.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1023/a:1024456713321
Subject(s) - psychology , clinical psychology , reliability (semiconductor) , convergent validity , psychometrics , kappa , test validity , consistency (knowledge bases) , traumatic stress , internal consistency , psychiatry , power (physics) , linguistics , physics , philosophy , mathematics , quantum mechanics , geometry
This article reviews the psychometric properties of the Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire (SLESQ), a recently developed trauma history screening measure, and discusses the complexities involved in assessing trauma exposure. There are relatively few general measures of exposure to a variety of types of traumatic events, and most of those that exist have not been subjected to rigorous psychometric evaluation. The SLESQ showed good test‐retest reliability, with a median kappa of .73, adequate convergent validity (with a lengthier interview) with a median kappa of .64, and good discrimination between Criterion A and non‐Criterion A events. The discussion addresses some of the challenges of assessing traumatic event exposure along the dimensions of defining traumatic events, assessment methodologies, reporting consistency, and incident validation.