This article describes the development and preliminary validation of a brief questionnaire that assesses exposure to a broad range of potentially traumatic events. Items were generated from multiple sources of information. Events were described in behaviorally descriptive terms. consistent with Diagnostic ami Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV posttraumatic stress disorder stressor criterion A I. When events were endorsed, respondents were asked if they experienced intense fear, helplessness, or horror (stressor criterion A2). In separate studies with college students. Vietnam veterans. battered women. and residents of a substance abuse program. most items possessed adequate to excellent temporal stability. In a study comparing questionnaire and structured-interview inquiries of trauma history. the 2 formats yielded similar rates of disclosure. Preliminary data on positive predictive power are also presented. Traumatic events, such as exposure to warfare, disasters, serious accidents. sudden deaths of loved ones, and physical and sexual abuse, are commonplace. Epidemiological research suggests that at least two-thirds of American adults have experienced at least one traumatic event in the course of their lives (Norris, 1992;

The Distressing Event Questionnaire (DEQ) is a brief instrument for assessing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to criteria provided in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.). The DEQ possesses high internal consistency and exhibited satisfactory short-term temporal stability in studies with Vietnam War combat veterans and battered women. In a sample of Vietnam War veterans and 4 separate samples of abused women (with histories of incest, rape, intimate partner abuse, or prostitution and abuse), the DEQ exhibited very good discriminative validity when judged against structured interview assessment of PTSD. The DEQ exhibited strong convergent validity with other PTSD measures and other indexes of adjustment and also exhibited strong convergent validity as a measure of PTSD across ethnic groups in both the veteran sample and the combined women's sample.

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