Testing the Factor Structure of the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) in African Community Samples from Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria

Marcin Owczarek,Menachem Ben-Ezra,Thanos Karatzias,Philip Hyland,Frédérique Vallieres,Mark Shevlin

doi:10.1080/15325024.2019.1689718

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test the factorial structure of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) as outlined in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in three African community samples using the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ). Four models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis based on a total sample of 2,524 participants, and the two-factor second-order model, representing PTSD and Disturbances in Self-organization (DSO), was the best fitting model. The factors were validated using demographic and trauma-related variables, supporting the use of the ITQ for English-speaking participants in these African countries.

Highlights

Marcin Owczarek is a doctoral researcher in the School of Psychology at Ulster University in Northern Ireland
The present study is the first examination of ICD-11 defined Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) models in national samples of African populations
Results were validated using regression modelling and examined whether traumatic events predicted PTSD and Disturbances in Self-Organisation (DSO) factors while controlling for demographic variables as well as age and sex with results suggesting that the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) can be used to assess PTSD and CPTSD in African countries despite the sociocultural differences

Summary

Introduction

Philip Hyland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Maynooth University, Ireland. His primary research area is traumatic stress studies, in understanding how to most accurately describe and measure psychological responses to trauma, the psychosocial risk factors for different types of traumatic response, and the long-term outcomes of traumatic exposure and traumatic responses. The aim of this study was to test the factorial structure of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) as outlined in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in three African community samples using the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ). A diagnosis of CPTSD, in addition to the three clusters of PTSD, requires endorsement of symptoms that reflect disturbances in self-organisation (DSO). Several studies suggest that CPTSD arises in conditions of cumulative trauma, early developmental trauma, and interpersonal trauma (Cloitre et al, 2014; Karatzias et al, 2017; Karatzias et al, 2019)

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