Cumulative Trauma Disorder Scale (CTD): Two Studies

Abstract

Measures that screen for mental health in multiple traumatized populations (e.g., refugees, minorities, mental health patients, prison inmates) lack theoretical clarity that makes it difficult to develop a measure that has robust psychometrics. The paper proposes cumulative trauma disorders (CTD) model and develops a scale that measures the concept and can be used as a general mental health screening tool in such populations. The measure has been tested on two studies: on representative community sample of Iraqi refugees in Michigan and on a clinic sample of refugees. Further, the measure was used on samples of Iraqi refugee and African American adolescents, West Bank and Gaza in Palestinian territories, as well as a mental health screening tool in some centers that screen refugees and torture survivors in US. The measure has been found to have high alpha and test-retest reliability, good construct, concurrent, discriminative and predictive validity in the two main samples and on all the studies and centers that utilized it. The measure can be used as a general mental health screening tool for adult and adolescent in public health settings in different cultures, as well as for refugees, torture survivors, and highly traumatized populations.

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Kira, I. , Templin, T. , Lewandowski, L. , Ashby, J. , Oladele, A. and Odenat, L. (2012) Cumulative Trauma Disorder Scale (CTD): Two Studies. Psychology, 3, 643-656. doi: 10.4236/psych.2012.39099.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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