title: The structure of post-traumatic stress symptoms in survivors of war: confirmatory factor analyses of the Impact of Event Scale--revised.
abstract: The study aimed at establishing the factor structure of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) in survivors of war. A total sample of 4167 participants with potentially traumatic experiences during the war in Ex-Yugoslavia was split into three samples: two independent samples of people who stayed in the area of conflict and one sample of refugees to Western European countries. Alternative models with three, four, and five factors of post-traumatic symptoms were tested in one sample. The other samples were used for cross-validation. Results indicated that the model of best fit had five factors, i.e., intrusion, avoidance, hyperarousal, numbing, and sleep disturbance. Model superiority was cross-validated in the two other samples. These findings suggest a five-factor model of post-traumatic stress symptoms in war survivors with numbing and sleep disturbance as separate factors in addition to intrusion, avoidance and hyperarousal.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. n.morina@uva.nl
authors.forename: Nexhmedin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Morina
authors.forename: Hendryk F
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Böhme
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ajdukovic
authors.forename: Marija
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bogic
authors.forename: Tanja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Franciskovic
authors.forename: Gian M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Galeazzi
authors.forename: Abdulah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kucukalic
authors.forename: Dusica
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lecic-Tosevski
authors.forename: Mihajlo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Popovski
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schützwohl
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Stangier
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Priebe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis*; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology*; D014857:Warfare