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:
  • prior trauma history
  • Life Events Checklist
  • 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
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/170007/cdc_170007_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 333.71 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:97fecca6af6ff945607c8976baed7089093896e3e4f0876b4c2adad71b052a3e06026c278f1d855d7cdc4793814faed75fc92b63cbc760b5d3d4d7f8c6b97ac3