PTSD's factor structure and measurement invariance across subgroups with differing count of trauma types

Alternative Models of DSM‐5 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Portuguese Adolescents Exposed to Trauma and Childhood Adversity

“…Second, this study provides data on possible alternative models of PTSD symptoms, which have important implications regarding the definition and assessment of PTSD and its consequent interventions among adolescent populations with history of childhood adversity. Nevertheless, contrary to what has been reported in some studies (Contractor et al, 2018;Shevlin, Hyland, Karatzias, et al, 2017), our results found good fit for all models, including the DSM-5 model, which highlights the complexity of the construct. Likewise, all competing models, in terms of inclusive criteria for a PTSD diagnosis, were significantly associated with other variables, but the hybrid model was shown to have the best association; this may be an indication that it is the model that most accurately represents the disorder.…”

“…First, to our knowledge, no previous study has investigated PTSD latent models, based on DSM-5, criteria among adolescents with history of childhood maltreatment and trauma exposure. This is relevant because most studies examining PTSD latent structure have been conducted with adult samples (e.g., Contractor et al, 2018;Erwin et al, 2017;Mordeno et al, 2017). The few studies conducted with adolescents have used clinical (Sachser et al, 2018) or community samples (Liu, Wang, Cao, Qing, & Armour, 2016) or youth exposed to natural disasters (Cao et al, 2017;Zhou, Wu, & Zhen, 2017) or accidents (Wang et al, 2017).…”

“…Nevertheless, several recent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) studies have indicated that the seven-factor hybrid model, which incorporates the key features of previous six-factor models, such as the anhedonia (Liu et al, 2014) and externalizing behavior (Tsai et al, 2015) models, has been the model that seems to best represent the DSM-5 PTSD symptoms. For instance, the sevenfactor hybrid model has demonstrated significantly better fit than the alternative PTSD models in samples of traumatized adults exposed to natural disasters (Mordeno, Carpio, Nalipay, & Saavedra, 2017), war (Erwin et al, 2017), and one or multiple traumatic events (Contractor, Caldas, Dolan, Lagdon, & Armour, 2018), as well as in community and traumatized youth samples exposed to high-intensity earthquakes (Cao, Wang, Cao, Zhang, & Elhai, 2017) or one or multiple traumatic events (Murphy et al, 2017).…”

“…Considering these recent and promising findings, the authors (Shevlin, Hyland, Karatzias, et al, 2017;Murphy et al, 2017) suggested that future research should continue to study the latent structure of PTSD symptoms and to compare different alternative factor analytic models in terms of diagnostic prevalence rates, different correlates, and risk factors. Such data can aid in the refinement of diagnostic criteria and help to establish clinically useful diagnostic measures (Armour et al, 2015;Contractor et al, 2018). To address such recommendations, the present study had three aims.…”

Stressful Life Events and the Clinical Expression of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD): An Exploratory Study

“…Stressful life events (SLEs) are defined as a combination of major life events and the subjective perception of the relevance of these events by the individual [ 28 ], and they are recognized to contribute to the onset or worsening of symptoms of diverse major psychiatric disorders, as explained by the classic diathesis–stress model [ 29 ]. It is known that SLEs play a crucial role in the onset of many psychiatric disorders, such as major depression [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ], and in trauma- and stress-related disorders [ 34 , 35 ]. Adams et al [ 36 ] postulated that it is unclear whether trauma or SL Escause OCD, are triggering factors that interact with pre-existing vulnerabilities, or are simply nonspecific factors that can exacerbate OCD along with other aspects of psychiatric symptomatology.…”