Psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the National Stressful Events Survey for PTSD-Short Scale in a sample of inpatients with Alcohol Use Disorder

Abstract

Background: The National Stressful Events Survey for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)-Short Scale (NSESSS-PTSD) allows the dimensional self-rating assessment of PTSD according to DSM-5, and the Turkish version of the scale had previously been validated in a sample of undergraduate students. Aim: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the NSESSS-PTSD in a sample of inpatients with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Methods: The group of participants consisted of 190 inpatients with AUD, 174 (91.6%) of whom reported trauma. Participants were evaluated by applying the NSESSS-PTSD, the PTSD Checklist Civilian (PCL-C) version, the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results: The NSESSS-PTSD was found to be a psychometrically sound PTSD screening measure with high convergent validity when compared with PCL-C (r=0.77), and to have a Cronbach's a of 0.88. Test-retest correlation for NSESSS-PTSD (n=119) was moderate (r=0.60). NSESSS-PTSD was also moderately correlated with DES (r=0.50), STAI-I (r=0.58), STAI-II (r=0.63) and BDI (r=0.59). In addition, a single component accounted for 50.66% of total variance for NSESSS-PTSD. NSESSS-PTSD had sensitivity and specificity scores of 0.79 and 0.84, respectively, when using the optimal cut-off score of 16. Additionally, the NSESSS-PTSD showed good discriminant validity as it significantly differentiated alcohol-dependent inpatients with a high risk of PTSD from those with a low risk. Conclusions: These findings support the Turkish versions of NSESSS-PTSD as being valid and reliable PTSD screening instruments that measure a unidimensional construct among inpatients with AUD.