The meaning of developmental trauma: validation of a brief screen for developmental trauma appraisals

Abstract

This article describes the development and validation of a brief screen for developmental trauma appraisals. The 7-item screen was administered to a non-clinical sample of 477 South African adolescents who had experienced interpersonal violence during childhood. In all, 216 participants (45%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder and 41 (9%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of complex posttraumatic stress disorder. Exploratory factor analysis yielded one factor which had a high level of internal consistency (α = .91) and acceptable levels of construct and concurrent validity for both posttraumatic stress disorder and complex posttraumatic stress disorder outcomes. Mediation analyses indicated that the appraisal screen measures a construct which effectively mediates the relationship between traumatic exposure and the severity of posttraumatic outcomes across a broad range of maltreatment types.

A proposed model for evaluating the impact of participating in trauma-focused research

“…Second, from a cognitive-mediational perspective (cf. Valjee & Collings, 2016), the impact of traumatic events is assumed to be mediated by an individual’s subjective perceptions of such experiences (e.g., feelings of fear, shame, guilt, or hopelessness). As such, it is the extent of negative abuse–related perceptions and appraisals (the essence of emotional battering), rather than mere exposure to abuse events (e.g., physical or sexual abuse), that is likely to be most strongly predictive of the severity of posttraumatic distress levels.…”