Psychometric properties of the Children's Revised Impact of Events Scale (CRIES) with Bangladeshi children and adolescents

Abstract

Identification of possible cases suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is important, especially in developing countries where traumatic events are typically prevalent. The Children's Revised Impact of Events Scale is a reliable and valid measure that has two brief versions (13 items and 8 items) to assess reactions to traumatic events among young people. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of both versions of the CRIES in a sample of 1342 children and adolescents aged 9-17 years (M=12.3 years, SD=2.12) recruited from six districts of Bangladesh. A sub-group of 135 children from four schools was re-tested on the measures within 3.5 weeks. Confirmatory factor analysis supported factor structures similar to those found in other studies for both versions of the CRIES. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis showed gender and age-group differences within the sample, supporting established age and gender differences in prevalence of PTSD symptoms. Analyses also indicated moderate to excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability and clear discriminant and convergent validity. These data support use of both the CRIES-13 and CRIES-8 to provide quick and psychometrically sound assessment of symptoms of PTSD among children and adolescents from Banglaspeaking communities.

Prevalence of traumatic events and risk for psychological symptoms among community and at‐risk children and adolescents from Bangladesh

“…The CRIES‐13 is a well‐known screening tool that has been used across a number of countries to identify PTSD in young populations and is comprised of three subscales, Intrusion, Avoidance and Arousal (Giannopoulou et al., ; Zhang, Zhang, Wu, Zhu, & Dyregrov, ). Psychometric properties are sound, including within Bangladesh (Deeba, Rapee, & Prvan, ).…”

Psychometric properties of a Brazilian Portuguese version of the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-8)

“…The values obtained were coherent with international literature. Studies with distinguished disaster events usually report a Cronbach's alpha varying between 0.70 to 0.86 for the total score of CRIES-8 2,11,13,24 . For the intrusion items, the Cronbach's alpha was reported at 0.60 to 0.88 2,11,13,14,24,25 .…”

“…The new version, Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-8), consists of 4 items measuring Intrusion and 4 items measuring Avoidance, becoming one of the most widely used screening tools for evaluating PTSD among children and adolescents 5 . Studies investigating the reliability and consistency of the scale have shown that PTSD is not culture bound and its factor structure has been proven to be stable across gender, age and different types of trauma [12][13][14] .…”

Approaches to the Assessment of Children in the Context of Disasters

“…Two particularly wellestablished screening measures used in the American and European context are the Children's Revised Impact of Events Scale (CRIES) [37] and the UCLA Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (PTSD RI) (both of these scales also have parent-report versions) [38]. Although these instruments have been used in non-Western contexts as well [39], there is a relative dearth of cultural adaptations of child self-report measures. This is concerning, as non-Western contexts may be especially vulnerable to the effects of disasters [40].…”