Background: Posttraumatic growth is one of the most commonly used concepts to evaluate positive changes after trauma. The principal scales used internationally to evaluate this phenomenon have not yet a Brazilian Portuguese version. Objectives: This study aimed to translate and adapt to the Brazilian context the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), the Core Beliefs Inventory (CBI), and the Event Related Rumination Inventory (ERRI). Methods: The procedures included translation, back translation, expert committee's evaluation, and pilot testing in the target population. Results: All items of all three instruments had a good content validity index after evaluation by four experts and three reformulations. The back translation of the final version also demonstrated that all Brazilian Portuguese versions convey the same meaning as the original English version. The final version was pilot tested with 30 undergraduate students, and all the items were above the cut-off point. Discussion: This study was able to produce Brazilian versions of the PTGI, CBI, and ERRI. Further studies are underway to determine the reliability, factorial validity, and convergent validity of the subscales of the instruments.

Objective: To examine psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Method: A total of 300 university students were evaluated though instruments that investigated trauma history, depression and posttraumatic symptoms, and personality traits through the Big Five model. Pearson's correlation was used to assess internal consistency, inter-item reliability and construct validity. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to investigate the factor structure of the PTGI. Results: Results confirmed the original five-factor structure. The results showed good internal consistency for the total scale (α = 0.91) and its subscales, ranging from α = 0.85 to α = 0.70. Also, evidence of construct and convergent validity was observed through correlations with posttraumatic and depression symptoms and personality measures. Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that the Brazilian PTGI is reliable and showed adequate evidence of validity.

The impact of childhood maltreatment has been studied in the last decades in several countries. This study aims to provide a review of systematic reviews about the relationship between neurobiological and cognitive impairments, psychiatric disorders and child maltreatment. PsycInfo, Pubmed and Scielo databases were searched to include reviews published from 2004 to 2014. Fifteen reviews about the impact of child maltreatment were analysed. Four of them deal with the neurobiological effects, two with the cognitive damages, and nine of them with the development of psychiatric disorders throughout the victim's lifetime. The association between childhood maltreatment and the development of psychiatric disorders is the one that has received the most attention in the last few decades. The impact of maltreatment in cognition, above all in childhood, has been the least studied area; few studies, presenting conflicting results, were found.

Recent investigations propose that cognitive characteristics of autobiographical memory significantly interact with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A traumatic event becoming more or less central in a person's identity and life story might influence development of the disorder. Studies show high correlations between event centrality (EC) and PTSD. Participated in this study 68 treatment-seeking individuals referred to a specialized service for suspected trauma-related disorder: 39 matched criteria for PTSD and 29 were exposed to trauma without PTSD. Our aims were to explore how the groups differ regarding EC, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic cognitions, PTSD symptom severity, and peritraumatic dissociative experience; and how distinctively EC interacts with the measures in each group. The PTSD group had higher scores in all variables but dissociation. EC correlated with overall PTSD symptoms only in the PTSD group and with dissociation only in the no-PTSD group. Findings support a model emphasizing the role of memory processes in PTSD. People exposed to trauma who developed PTSD had the memory of the traumatic experience more intensively governing their sense of self and thus eliciting more negative cognitive reactions. As EC facilitates recollection of the traumatic event, it could also mediate a semantization process that reinforces and increases posttraumatic symptoms.

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CBT and its components still appear to be equally efficacious in improving PTSD symptoms and diagnosis. Even so, a current tendency of researchers to focus on ET exists. EMDR shows interesting results compared to CBT. Further research should clarify the lasting effects, efficiency, and other comparative benefits of each protocol.

The increasing use of virtual reality (VR) environments in different domains of research and psychotherapy offers advantages over traditional treatment approaches. However, in order to feel immersed and involved by the VR experience, participants require VR scenarios that promote the subjective feeling of ''being there,'' i.e., presence. The most utilized mean of operationalization of presence is through self-report scales and questionnaires. This article aims to report the translation and adaptation of the presence questionnaire (PQ) into Brazilian Portuguese, comparing the factorial distribution of the adapted version with the original PQ. Translation and back-translations were conducted by a team of Brazilian psychologists and computer science professionals with experience on the field. Participants (n = 100) answered the Brazilian version of the questionnaire after wearing a head-mounted display (HMD) and driving a virtual automobile in a VR scenario. The principal component analysis of the translated version generated factors consistently with the original study; however, items that had equivocal construct adequacy in the original PQ changed factors. The factor structure of the PQ is discussed. The growing use of VR environments requires instruments assessing the presence of immersed individuals, and the Brazilian Portuguese version of the PQ appears to be a viable option.

BACKGROUND: The most recent editions of diagnostic manuals have proposed important modifications in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) criteria. The International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) is the gold-standard measurement for assessing PTSD and complex PTSD in accordance with the model of the 11 th International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to adapt the ITQ for the Brazilian context. DESIGN AND SETTING: The translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the ITQ for use in Brazilian Portuguese was performed in trauma research facilities in Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, Brazil. METHODS: The adaptation followed five steps: (1) translation; (2) committee synthesis; (3) experts' evaluation through the content validity index (CVI) and assessment of interrater agreement though kappa statistics; (4) comprehension test with clinical and community samples (n = 35); and (5) final back-translation and authors' evaluation. RESULTS: Two independent translations were conducted. While working on a synthesis of these translations, the committee proposed changes in six items to adapt idiomatic expressions or to achieve a more accurate technical fit. Both the expert judges' evaluation (CVI > 0.7; k > 0.55) and the pretest in the target population (mean comprehension > 3) indicated that the adapted items were adequate and comprehensible. The final back-translation was approved by the authors of the original instrument. CONCLUSION: ITQ in its Brazilian Portuguese version achieved satisfactory content validity, thus providing a tool for Brazilian research based on PTSD models of the ICD-11.