The International Trauma Questionnaire: development of a self-report measure of ICD-11 PTSD and complex PTSD

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to finalize the development of the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ), a self-report diagnostic measure of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD), as defined in the 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

Method: The optimal symptom indicators of PTSD and CPTSD were identified by applying item response theory (IRT) analysis to data from a trauma-exposed community sample (n = 1051) and a trauma-exposed clinical sample (n = 247) from the United Kingdom. The validity of the optimized 12-item ITQ was assessed with confirmatory factor analyses. Diagnostic rates were estimated and compared to previous validation studies.

Results: The latent structure of the 12-item, optimized ITQ was consistent with prior findings, and diagnostic rates of PTSD and CPTSD were in line with previous estimates.

Conclusion: The ITQ is a brief, simply worded measure of the core features of PTSD and CPTSD. It is consistent with the organizing principles of the ICD-11 to maximize clinical utility and international applicability through a focus on a limited but central set of symptoms. The measure is freely available and can be found in the body of this paper.

Keywords: ICD-11; complex PTSD; post-traumatic stress disorder; self-report; the International Trauma Questionnaire.