Method to Convert an 8-Item PCL-5 Score to a Total PCL-5 Score: a Scaled Equation Analysis
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Method to Convert an 8-Item PCL-5 Score to a Total PCL-5 Score: a Scaled Equation Analysis Zoe M. F. Brier 1 & Matthew Price 1 Received: 8 September 2019 / Revised: 16 March 2020 / Accepted: 13 April 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The repeated assessment of PTSD symptom severity is a critical component of research and evidence-based interventions. PTSD is composed of 20 symptoms across four clusters. However, 20-item measures can be burdensome to administer frequently, especially in ecological momentary assessment (EMA) where multiple assessments are conducted per day. An abbreviated 8-item version of the PCL-5 was developed to obtain information about PTSD symptoms at reduced effort to the participant. However, the symptom severity scale by which symptoms can range between the abbreviated (0–32) and full (0–80) scales differ, which limits the interpretability of the abbreviated scale. The current study evaluated three different methods (a proportional, linear regression, and genetic programming model) to convert scores from the abbreviated measure to that of the full PCL. These equations were then compared across two testing samples to assess their accuracy and bias. The genetic programming and linear regression equation were superior to a proportional equation in both measures of accuracy and bias, with the genetic programming equation demonstrating less bias overall than the linear regression. Furthermore, the diagnostic utility of each method was found to be similar. These results provide a method to convert abbreviated PCL scores to that of the full scale, which increases the utility of this abbreviated scale. Keywords Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) . PCL-5
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a major public health concern, with approximately 8.3% of adults in the USA having met criteria for the disorder in their lifetime and lifetime exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) for adults estimated at 89.7% (Kilpatrick et al. 2013). Recent investigations of PTSD have suggested that symptom severity fluctuates considerably within a day, possibly due to responses to environmental cues (Gelkopf et al. 2019). Understanding these symptom dynamics is necessary to improve our diagnosis and treatment of PTSD. In order to examine these changes in PTSD symptom severity, it is necessary to conduct multiple assessments within a brief period as in an ecological momentary assessment design (EMA; Shiffman et al. 2008). Recent research examined the in vivo assessment of PTSD symptoms post-trauma and found EMA to be a feasible such method (Price et al. 2018c) and, in fact, may even be therapeutic
* Zoe M. F. Brier [email protected] 1
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
(Dewey et al. 2015). The widespread availability of mobile devices capable of administering PTSD assessments has made such research more feasible in recent years. However, a key challenge to conducting such work are assessments suitable for such frequent assessments. PTSD is composed of 20 symptoms across four cluste
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