No abstract

Several changes have been made to the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The present study attempts to establish the validity and reliability of the new PTSD Checklist for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (PCL-5). A group of 597 Malaysian adolescents (Mage = 16.9, SD = 1.30) completed the PCL-5, Harvard Trauma Questionnaire, and Patient Health Questionnaire for depression (PHQ-9). The results showed the PCL-5 has good internal consistency (α = .91), test–retest reliability (r = .61), and concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity with the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (r = .69) and the Patient Health Questionnaire for depression (r = .56). Results from the receiver operating characteristic curve and kappa coefficient analysis suggest that a PCL-5 cutoff score of 33 is feasible for use among Malaysian adolescents with 72% sensitivity and 92% specificity. Thus, the PCL-5 appears psychometrically sound, and a cutoff of 33 is recommended for PTSD screening among the Malaysian adolescent population.

These findings indicate that despite the presence of DIF for 2 DSM-5 symptoms, this does not provide firm support for nonequivalence across sex. (PsycINFO Database Record

Psychotherapies were offered to alleviate psychological and physical symptoms; however, most psychological interventions were only delivered after cancer treatment. Newly diagnosed cancer patients experienced psychological distress while waiting for treatments. This review paper focused on randomized control trial studies, aimed to investigate the effectiveness of psychological intervention among newly diagnosed cancer patients. Eight randomized control trial papers were found in recent 10 year period through electronic database. A moderate to large effect size was detected on the outcomes, ranging from 0.43 to 0.89. This indicated that psychological-based prehabilitation with standard care yielded better outcomes than standard care alone. Psychological-based prehabilitation provides evidence in its effectiveness to reduce psychological distress, functional impairment, recurrence of cancer, numbers of immune reactivity and sleeping quality; however, inconsistent with longer survival result among cancer patients. In conclusion, psychological-based prehabilitation before cancer treatment is necessary for better treatment outcome, and future research is needed to investigate more directly the outcome.

The factor structure of DSM-5 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been extensively debated with evidence supporting the recently proposed seven-factor Hybrid model. However, despite myriad studies examining PTSD symptom structure few have assessed the diagnostic implications of these proposed models. This study aimed to generate PTSD prevalence estimates derived from the 7 alternative factor models and assess whether pre-established risk factors associated with PTSD (e.g., transportation accidents and sexual victimisation) produce consistent risk estimates. Seven alternative models were estimated within a confirmatory factor analytic framework using the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5). Data were analysed from a Malaysian adolescent community sample (n = 481) of which 61.7% were female, with a mean age of 17.03 years. The results indicated that all models provided satisfactory model fit with statistical superiority for the Externalising Behaviours and seven-factor Hybrid models. The PTSD prevalence estimates varied substantially ranging from 21.8% for the DSM-5 model to 10.0% for the Hybrid model. Estimates of risk associated with PTSD were inconsistent across the alternative models, with substantial variation emerging for sexual victimisation. These findings have important implications for research and practice and highlight that more research attention is needed to examine the diagnostic implications emerging from the alternative models of PTSD.