Psychometric study of a brief screen for PTSD: assessing the impact of multiple traumatic events

Most measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are limited in that they focus on a single traumatic event and cannot be used to assess symptoms in persons who report no traumatic events. The utility of the brief PTSD measures that do not key to a single trauma is limited by lengthiness and high reading levels. The Screen for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms (SPTSS) is a brief, self-report screening instrument for PTSD symptoms that overcomes these limitations by assessing PTSD symptoms using a low reading level and without keying them to a specific traumatic event. In a sample of 136 psychiatric inpatients, the SPTSS showed good internal consistency, a high sensitivity rate, and a moderate specificity rate. The concurrent and construct validity of the SPTSS were supported by strong correlations with symptom and trauma experience measures and by comparisons of SPTSS scores of groups with different trauma histories.