Abstract
Introduction: A traumatic event is an extremely threatening and frightening experience in an individual's life. Children who are exposed to traumatic events are twice as likely to develop a mental disorder. Screening can provide insight into the traumatic experience of children, identifying those eligible for further evaluation, and support. With this aim, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the Lifetime Incidence of Traumatic Events questionnaire (LITE) in Slovene by calculating retest reliabilty, construct validity (cross-informant agreement) and external validity, where we calculated the correlation of the number of differenet traumatic events with psychopathological symptoms.Methods: 280 child-parent pairs (children aged 11.3 ± 2.2 years) from various Slovenian primary schools participated in the study. They were divided into two groups: 180 healthy primary school students and 100 children with Type 1 Diabetes (our study was a part of a larger study The Influence of Psychobiological Adversity on Children and Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Study). Two versions of the LITE questionnaire were used. Children completed the child report (LITE-S) and parents the parent report (LITE-P) version. After 4 weeks, 117 children, and 114 parents filled out the LITEs again. External validity was assessed using the Youth Self Report and Child Behaviour Checklist syndrome-oriented scales.Results: Retest reliability for individual scales was r = 0.469–0.639 (ρ = 0.443–0.636; p < 0.001), but higher for individual items (κ = 0.263–0.821; p < 0.001). Correlations between reports from parents and children were r = 0.313–0.345 (ρ = 0.317–0.348; p < 0.001). The number of different events experienced by children correlated significantly with the measured depressive—anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.Conclusions: Based on our results, the LITE-S and LITE-P “All events” scale have acceptable psychometric properties for use in research and in clinical practise screening. We recommend looking at single items, taking into consideration the responses from both the child and the parent for more precise information. To improve the precision of the psychodiagnostic capacity of the questionnaire, further research on various populations should be performed.
Highlights
A traumatic event is an extremely threatening and frightening experience in an individual’s life
Seen someone else get hurt Friend very sick, hurt or died Been hit, whipped, beaten, or hurt Other scary or upsetting event Been hurt in another kind of accident or sick in a hospital Been threatened Been robbed Someone in the family in the hospital Been in hurricane, tornado or mudslide Been made to do sex things Been tied up in a small place Parents separated or divorced Parents broke things or hurt each other Been in a car accident Someone in the family died Been in a fire Been taken away from family
The results demonstrated that the Lifetime Incidence of Traumatic Events questionnaire (LITE)-S and the LITE-P instruments have acceptable validity and can be used for assessing exposure to traumatic events, and its impact on children and adolescents
Summary
A traumatic event is an extremely threatening and frightening experience in an individual’s life. Screening can provide insight into the traumatic experience of children, identifying those eligible for further evaluation, and support. Traumatic events are extremely threatening and frightening experiences in an individual’s life that surpass regular stressful events in intensity or nature [1]. A child can experience an event as highly traumatic and react severely to it, even though adults may not perceive it as such [5]. A child may not experience an event as traumatic, if he or she does not perceive it as dangerous to him/herself or others. Children can experience and react to the same event differently, depending on their understanding of the event, on its nature and intensity, on the importance of the event for the child, as well as on their developmental stage, resilience, the cultural and social factors in their environment, their support network, previous traumatic experience and family issues [3]
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