Consistency of self‐reports of traumatic events in a population of Dutch peacekeepers: Reason for optimism?

Bramsen, I.; Dirkzwager, Anja; Esch, Suzanne C. M. van; Ploeg, Henk M. van der

doi:10.1023/a:1013090005246

Cited by 52 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Our finding provides some support to Dohrenwend et al who showed self-report exposure in war-zone areas among Vietnam veterans with PTSD were highly correlated with military collected data on military occupational specialty, killed-in-action rate, and military unit (Dohrenwend et al, 2006). Our findings can contribute to the discussion on the extent of recall bias in cross-sectional studies, but from a different angle to others studies (Bramsen et al, 2001;Dohrenwend et al, 2006;Southwick et al,1997). We have demonstrated that a background of previous psychological ill health may influence the reporting of traumatic and protective exposures, but they act independently of the possible effect of current psychological ill health.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…We also assess whether the relationship varies according to the characteristics of symptoms reported, intrusive recollection or avoidance/numbing. Our study differs from other studies that have assessed recall bias in reporting exposure (Bramsen et al, 2001;Dohrenwend et al, 2006;King et al, 2000Roemer et al, 1998Southwick et al, 1997;Wessely et al, 2003) in so far as deployment experiences were obviously unavailable in the predeployment survey. An advantage of our study is that we have data on mental health before the military operation, which other studies exploring recall bias did not have.…”

Section: In a Prospective Study We Evaluated Pre-and Postdeployment contrasting

confidence: 76%

“…The small magnitude of the association in our study would explain the inconsistent findings in the literature. Bramsen et al (2001) found an effect of mood in the reporting of exposures, but others (Roemer et al,1998;Wessely et al, 2003) have not found such an association. Wessely et al showed that GHQ scores were associated with number of newly endorsed changes of exposures in the Gulf war, but not in the Bosnia operation (Wessely et al, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Findings to date are disparate, and with few exceptions (King et al, 2000;Wessely et al, 2003) the majority are based on modest sample sizes (Bramsen, Dirkzwager, van Esch, & van der Ploeg, 2001;Dohrenwend et al, 2006;Roemer, Litz, Orsillo, Ehlich, & Friedman, 1998;Southwick, Morgan, Nicolaou, Andreas & Charney, 1997) or have focused on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Dohrenwend et al, 2006;Southwick et al,1997). Among these studies, some have found recall of traumatic events to be consistent over time, and not affected by PTSD (Bramsen et al, 2001; Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Roberto Rona, King' Dohrenwend et al, 2006), whereas others report an increase in recalled traumatic experiences associated with PTSD symptoms (King et al, 2000;Roemer et al, 1998;Southwick et al,1997) and psychological distress (Bramsen et al, 2001), but not consistently so (Roemer et al, 1998;Southwick et al, 1997;Wessely et al, 2003). One study of UK Gulf war veterans found a relationship between current health perception and changes of endorsement of traumatic events, but only small associations between PTSD and changes of endorsement (Wessely et al, 2003).…”

Section: In a Prospective Study We Evaluated Pre-and Postdeployment mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does prior psychological health influence recall of military experiences? a prospective study

Wilson

Jones

Hull

et al. 2008

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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In a prospective study, we evaluated pre- and postdeployment psychological health on recall of risk factors to assess recall bias. Measures of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), PTSD Checklist (PCL), and symptom clusters from the PCL were obtained from 681 UK military personnel along with information on traumatic and protective risk factors. Postdeployment psychological health was more important in explaining recall of traumatic experiences than predeployment psychological health. Predeployment intrusive cluster scores were highly associated with traumatic exposures. Postdeployment, but not predeployment GHQ showed small effects for most risk factors. With the exception of intrusive thoughts, there is insufficient evidence to suggest predeployment psychological status would be useful in correcting for recall bias in subsequent cross-sectional studies.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: In a Prospective Study We Evaluated Pre-and Postdeployment contrasting

confidence: 76%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: In a Prospective Study We Evaluated Pre-and Postdeployment mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Does prior psychological health influence recall of military experiences? a prospective study

Wilson

Jones

Hull

et al. 2008

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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“…A third study, with members of a Netherlands peacekeeping force in Cambodia, found almost none (Bramsen, van der Ploeg, Dirkzwager, & van Esch, 2001). How serious, then, is the problem of recall bias?…”

Section: Impact Of Intracategory Variability On Reliability and Validmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inventorying stressful life events as risk factors for psychopathology: Toward resolution of the problem of intracategory variability.

Dohrenwend¹

2006

Psychological Bulletin

492

482

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An explosion of research on life events has occurred since the publication of the Holmes and Rahe checklist in 1967. Despite criticism, especially of their use in research on psychopathology, such economical inventories have remained dominant. Most of the problems of reliability and validity with traditional inventories can be traced to the intracategory variability of actual events reported in their broad checklist categories. The purposes of this review are, first, to examine how this problem has been addressed within the tradition of economical checklist approaches; second, to determine how it has been dealt with by far less widely used and far less economical labor-intensive interview and narrative-rating approaches; and, third, to assess the prospects for relatively economical, as well as reliable and valid, solutions. Keywordsstressful life events; checklist inventories; intracategory variability; narrative-rating methods; psychopathology Almost four decades ago, Holmes and Rahe (1967) published a checklist of 43 events, such as death of a spouse, divorce, fired at work, and sex difficulties, called the Schedule of Recent Experiences (SRE). Its purpose was to inventory "fundamentally important environmental incidents" (Meyer, 1951, p. 53) that were found (in analyses of patients' charts) to frequently precede illness onsets. Stressful events were defined as occurrences that were likely to bring about readjustment-requiring changes in people's usual activities. A magnitude estimation procedure was used by panels of judges to assign Life Change Unit (LCU) scores to each of the 43 events on the list (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). A summation of these scores on events occurring in a given, usually quite recent, period of time was taken as the indicator of amount of stress. The checklist can be answered in either a self-administered questionnaire or an interview.Since the publication of this economical measurement procedure, the SRE, a tremendous increase has occurred in the construction of such measures and in quantitative research on relations between inventoried life events and health. For example, a search of the terms life events, life change, stressful life events, and life stress (or a combination of these terms) using PsycINFO (http://www.apa.org/psycinfo) shows an increasing rate of publications on these topics, from 292 in the decade of 1967 to 1976, to 2,126 in 1977 to 1986, to 4,269 in 1987 to Breslau, 2002;Brown & Harris, 1989;Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1974;Grant, Compas, Thurm, McMahon, & Gipson, 2004;Gunderson & Rahe, 1974;Paykel, 1974;Rahe & Arthur, 1978 Tor, 1998). The common characteristic of these traditional checklists for research, whether focusing on usual situations or extreme situations, is that they consist of rather broad categories of events (e.g., divorce) rather than detailed descriptions of individual events (e.g., a divorce after a period of marital conflict over the infidelity of one's spouse).Although the emphasis has usually been on recent events in relatively brief interva...

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Consistency of Reporting for Stressful Life Events Among Nondeployed Soldiers

2016

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Consistency of self‐reports of traumatic events in a population of Dutch peacekeepers: Reason for optimism?

Cited by 52 publications

References 6 publications

Does prior psychological health influence recall of military experiences? a prospective study

Does prior psychological health influence recall of military experiences? a prospective study

Inventorying stressful life events as risk factors for psychopathology: Toward resolution of the problem of intracategory variability.

Consistency of Reporting for Stressful Life Events Among Nondeployed Soldiers

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