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The posttraumatic diagnostic scale (PDS) is a self-report instrument for PTSD that is simple to administer and has demonstrated good psychometric properties. We compared the PDS with the gold standard clinician administered PTSD scale (CAPS) diagnostic interview for PTSD. We assessed 138 women who were victims of domestic violence using both the PDS and the CAPS. Findings confirmed that PTSD develops at a high base rate in this sample. The PDS generally performed well in relation to the CAPS although with a tendency to overdiagnose PTSD. The findings lend further support to the use of the PDS as a diagnostic tool for PTSD but indicate that it is better at identifying survivors with PTSD than those without the disorder.

Few studies have examined the impact of trauma research participation upon trauma survivors. Empirical data regarding reactions to research participation would be very useful to address the question of whether it is harmful for trauma survivors to participate in trauma studies. We examined participant reactions to different trauma assessment procedures in domestic violence (N = 260), rape (N = 108), and physical assault (N = 62) samples. Results indicated that participation was very well tolerated by the vast majority of the trauma survivors. Participants generally found that the assessment experience was not distressing and was, in fact, viewed as an interesting and valuable experience. The findings suggest that trauma survivors are not too fragile to participate in trauma research even in the acute aftermath of a traumatic experience.

A. E. Stewart and J. H. Lord (2002) call for abandoning the term motor vehicle accident and substituting motor vehicle crash on definitional and patient care grounds. We disagree on definitional grounds and because of the absence of empirical data from accident survivors to support their contentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]