Development and validation of a new instrument to assess lifetime trauma and victimization history

This article describes a new easy-to-administer and understand, interview-based instrument that systematically and comprehensively assesses a person's Lifetime Trauma and Victimization History (LTVH). The LTVH inquires about 30 traumas and victimization experiences (including general traumas, physical assault/abuse, sexual assault/abuse, kidnapping/stalking, family/friend murdered or committed suicide, witnessed trauma to someone else, and crime victimizations) and age of onset, perpetrator, degree of danger and fear experienced, duration, and frequency of each experience. We present evidence of predictive validity of the LTVH as well as convergent and criterion validity for the child abuse items using information from individuals with documented histories of child abuse and neglect and matched comparisons (without documented histories of childhood victimization). The 896 individuals (mean age = 39.5 years) reported 11,850 traumas or victimization experiences. The LTVH demonstrates good predictive, criterion-related, and convergent validity and a high level of agreement between earlier and current reports of certain types of traumas.