Clinical, field, and experimental studies of response to potentially stressful life events give concordant findings: there is a general human tendency to undergo episodes of intrusive thinking and periods of avoidance. A scale of current subjective distress, related to a specific event, was based on a list of items composed of commonly reported experiences of intrusion and avoidance. Responses of 66 persons admitted to an outpatient clinic for the treatment of stress response syndromes indicated that the scale had a useful degree of significance and homogeneity. Empirical clusters supported the concept of subscores for intrusions and avoidance responses.

Holly Prigerson and colleagues tested the psychometric validity of criteria for prolonged grief disorder (PGD) to enhance the detection and care of bereaved individuals at heightened risk of persistent distress and dysfunction.

The IES is a useful measure of stress reactions after a range of traumatic events, and it is valuable for detecting individuals who require treatment.

The introduction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Hi of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a new diagnostic entity encourages more careful investigation of the psychological phenomena associated with responses to a traumatic life event. With the increasing research effort likely in this area there is the attendant call for more precise description and quantification of these phenomena. The present study contributes necessary cross-validational evidence on the Impact of Event Scale, a measure introduced to provide researchers with a psychometrically sound self-report instrument assessing the essential characteristics associated with stress disorders. In addition, the data are interpreted as consistent with a clinically derived theoretical model of the pattern of response to serious life events.