The trauma symptom inventory: Italian validation of an instrument for the assessment of post-traumatic symptoms.
OBJECTIVE
The trauma symptom inventory (TSI; Briere, 1995) is a useful instrument for the assessment of post-traumatic and common trauma-related mental health symptoms. The purpose of the study was to validate the Italian version of the original TSI.


METHODS
Participants from non-clinical (n = 285), clinical (n = 110) and post-traumatic (n = 30) samples completed the TSI as part of a battery that included self-report measures of trauma exposure [MMPI-2 PK scale and Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R)] and of psychological symptoms [brief symptom inventory (BSI) and symptom questionnaire (SQ)]. TSI validity scales were compared with MMPI-2 validity scales in order to assess convergent validity.


RESULTS
The TSI Italian version showed adequate internal consistency reliability and a good convergent validity. Discriminant function analysis indicates a classification accuracy of TSI scales of 90% for true-positive and 91.4% for true-negative post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases. A revised three-factor structural model, which demonstrated an adequate and the best fit for the data, was proposed.


CONCLUSIONS
The study extended the generalization and validity of TSI and provided some suggestions for eventually revisiting factorial structure of the questionnaire.
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, 40127 Bologna, Italy. e.gambetti@unibo.it
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Giusberti
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult