The revised Civilian Mississippi Scale for PTSD: reliability, validity, and cross-language stability

Examined in two studies the psychometric properties of a revised 30-item version of the civilian form of the Mississippi Scale for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) developed by Keane, Caddell, and Taylor (1988). Study 1, whose sample was composed of 37 bilingual adults who had experienced a variety of traumatic events, was undertaken primarily to examine the linguistic equivalence of a Spanish translation of the scale. High cross-language stability was demonstrated, and both English and Spanish versions showed high internal consistency. Study 2, which used a sample of 404 victims of Hurricane Andrew, provided additional evidence of scale reliability and also showed that the scale correlates in meaningful ways with known traumatic stressors. Together the results indicate that the scale is applicable to different populations and events and constitutes a valid and reliable self-report, measure of PTSD.