Abstract
Abstract The Impact of Events Scale (IES) has been characterized as one of the most widely used measures of the subjective psychological distress associated with traumatic events. However, the scale may measure other aspects of events, such as the cognitive accessibility of an event, as well as emotional distress or symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). To explore this possibility, 58 Texas community college students (35 women, 23 men) completed the scale with the target “stressor” being the worst movie or television show they had seen recently. Analysis showed that participants' scores approximated IES ranges often associated with significant emotional distress or PTSD. Insofar as the IES measures the memorability, cognitive accessibility or other aspects of events instead of psychopathology associated with events, it may produce misleading results when used as a measure of PTSD or emotional distress.
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