Lisa A. Goodman

Assessing traumatic event exposure: General issues and preliminary findings for the Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire

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.

Outcomes of Single Versus Multiple Trauma Exposure in a Screening Sample

Most studies ignore prior trauma exposure when evaluating outcomes of target events. This study explored symptom severity associated with different types of traumatic experiences occurring alone and with multiple exposure. The Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire categorized 1,909 sophomore women into groups including no trauma exposure, exposure to a serious non-Criterion A event only, exposure to several unique noninterpersonal and interpersonal events, and exposure to multiple interpersonal events. Women with noninterpersonal trauma did not differ from those without trauma on the Trauma Symptom Inventory. Only interpersonal trauma and non-Criterion A events were associated with elevated symptoms; multiple-exposure participants had significantly higher symptoms than all other groups. Complex trauma histories should be accounted for, even in studies of one target event.

Male violence against women. Current research and future directions

This Psychology in the Public Forum section, authored by the American Psychological Associations Committee on Women in Psychologys Task Force on Male Violence Against Women and by Senator Joseph Biden, examines the prevalence, impact, and public policy dimensions of physical assault, sexual assault, and sexual harassment of women. This introduction reviews common themes that emerge from the articles that follow. It concludes by emphasizing that the problem of violence against women cannot be fully understood, let alone solved, by focusing exclusively on individual psychology. Only by changing the social and cultural institutions that have given rise to the problem can a lasting solution be achieved.

Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Trauma History Assessment

An increasing number of psychometrically sound measures of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) is available for research and clinical assessment purposes, for example, the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS; Blake et al., 1990) and the PTSD Symptom Scale (PSS; Foa et al., 1993). However, although such measures address the B (reexperiencing), C (avoidance/numbing), and D (arousal) symptoms of the disorder, they tend not to address assessment of the A (exposure) criterion independently, and methodology for standardized assessment of trauma history has been relatively neglected. A number of efforts to develop such instruments are underway; however, trauma history instruments that are comprehensive and that have established psychometric properties are the exception. Reliably defining traumatic event characteristics that meet Criterion A of PTSD and obtaining validation for the occurrence of these events pose a serious challenge. Problems with recall, memory, and reporting further complicate assessment of these events. This chapter addresses these issues from the perspective of two efforts to develop such instruments. Although the purposes, formats, and target populations for the two trauma history instruments differ widely, both assess a wide range of traumatic events. Preliminary studies of these two instruments have focused on the stability and validity of reports of these events. Problems with operationalizing definitions of traumatic events that meet Criterion A have been encountered in each study. Even decisions regarding how to go about establishing the psychometric properties of these instruments were complex and not completely straightforward. The chapter discusses these common challenges and their implications for understanding and assessing trauma history and provides suggestions for future research in this area.