Choosing the right instruments for psychotrauma related research

No abstract available. (Published: 28 December 2015) Citation: European Journal of Psychotraumatology 2015, 6 : 30585 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v6.30585

C hoosing the right instrument for trauma research or the best clinical measure to assess a patient's mental health status is not an easy task. What would be the best measure to assess trauma history, posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression or anxiety symptoms, addiction problems, or other frequent consequences of trauma? And which are the risk or resilience factors that we need to address and how? Should it be a clinical interview or would a self-report measure be more appropriate? Is paper-and-pencil to be preferred or an online tool or mobile app even (Olff, 2015)?
To be able to compare data collected across labs and countries, combining data sets for meta-or mega-analysis using standardized tools would be a major accomplishment. In Table 1, in order to move toward this goal, a selected set of instruments is listed per domain; they are valid and reliable and freely available, as well as relatively quick to administer. This list is based on our work for a European Union (EU)-funded project (www.OPSIC.eu), where a large set of instruments was evaluated together with other consortium partners. In another EU-funded project, INPREZE, we have developed a mobile app for , allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially, under the condition that appropriate credit is given, that a link to the license is provided, and that you indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.   assessing trauma-related symptoms (Smart Assessment on your Mobile (SAM); see Olff, 2015), which is also based on this type of valid, relatively brief instruments. We aim to extend this list with other instruments and to add the language it is available in. We will be happy to receive your input.
In this journal, we have published on a wide range of measures on adults (see Table 2) and on children and family (see Table 3) that may help individuals make more informed choices. European Journal of Psychotraumatology has now created a section on Instruments where all articles will be placed that address psychometric tools or traumarelated measures (such as those in Table 2 and 3) regardless of the primary category of papers they fall into, for example, clinical practice articles and basic research articles.
The ultimate aim of collecting these ''Instruments articles'' is to create an authoritative multiple language resource that offers the possibility of finding the right type of measure for the right type of topic in the right language. Ideally, we would like to have free access to all instruments described, without cost or complex copyright issues.
There is ongoing discussion on whether one should stick to diagnoses as defined by classification systems, such as the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5) or the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), currently under revision but with release date for ICD-11 in 2018. Table 4 shows articles that address whether DSM or ICD might be the best approach toward diagnosing posttraumatic stress disorder.
For research, it might also be of value to study phenotypes or domains that may be present across the classical disorders, such as cognitive, memory, or executive functions. NIMH has introduced Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) as a new way of studying mental disorders. It integrates many levels of information (from genomics to self-report) to better understand the basic dimensions of functioning. I welcome more research on this type of assessment in our journal.