Scoring the Life Events Checklist: Comparison of Three Scoring Methods

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Psychol Trauma
• Personal Author:
  Weis, Carissa N. ; Webb, E. Kate ; Stevens, Sarah K. ; Larson, Christine L. ; deRoon-Cassini, Terri A.
• Description:
  Objective:
  
  Prior trauma history is a reliable and robust risk predictor for PTSD development. Obtaining an accurate measurement of prior trauma history is critical in research of trauma-related outcomes. The Life Events Checklist (LEC) is a widely used self-report measure of trauma history that categorizes events by the proximity to trauma exposure; however, the field has published multiple scoring methods when assessing the LEC. Herein, we propose a novel scoring procedure in which total scores from the LEC are weighted according to the proximity of trauma exposure with “experienced” events weighted most and “learned about” events weighted least.
  
  Method:
  
  The utility of this weighted score was assessed in two traumatically-injured civilian samples and compared against previously published scoring methods, including a non-weighted score including all events experienced, witnessed, and learned about, as well as a score consisting of only experienced events.
  
  Results:
  
  Results indicated the standard total score was most reliable, followed by the weighted score. The experienced events score was least reliable, but the best predictor of future PTSD symptoms.
  
  Conclusions:
  
  One method to balance the predictive strength of experienced events and the excellent reliability of a total LEC score, is to adopt the newly proposed weighted score. Future use of this weighted scoring method can provide a comprehensive estimate of lifetime trauma exposure while still emphasizing the direct proximity of experienced events compared to other degrees of exposure.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Checklist Humans Reproducibility Of Results Research Design Self Report Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
• Keywords:
  Life Events Checklist Prior Trauma History PTSD Trauma Outcomes
• Source:
  Psychol Trauma. 14(4):714-720
• Pubmed ID:
  34166045
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8702580
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  TL1 TR001437/TR/NCATS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 MH106574/MH/NIMH NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U01 CE002944/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U01 DA041025/DA/NIDA NIH HHSUnited States/ ; NH/NIH HHSUnited States/ ; National Institutes of Health; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/ ; Medical College of Wisconsin/
• Volume:
  14
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:97fecca6af6ff945607c8976baed7089093896e3e4f0876b4c2adad71b052a3e06026c278f1d855d7cdc4793814faed75fc92b63cbc760b5d3d4d7f8c6b97ac3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/170007/cdc_170007_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 333.71 KB ]