Citation

Thompson-Hollands J, Lee DJ, Allen ES, Pukay-Martin ND, Campbell SB, Chard KM, Renshaw KD, Sprunger JG, Birkley E, Dondanville KA, Litz BT, Riggs DS, Schobitz RP, Yarvis JS, Young-McCaughan S, Keane TM, Peterson AL, Monson CM, Fredman SJ. Eur. J. Psychotraumatol. 2024; 15(1): e2353530.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, The Author(s), Publisher Co-action Publishing)

DOI

10.1080/20008066.2024.2353530

PMID

38836407

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Symptom accommodation by family members (FMs) of individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) includes FMs' participation in patients' avoidance/safety behaviours and constraining self-expression to minimise conflict, potentially maintaining patients' symptoms. The Significant Others' Responses to Trauma Scale (SORTS) is the only existing measure of accommodation in PTSD but has not been rigorously psychometrically tested.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to conduct further psychometric analyses to determine the factor structure and overall performance of the SORTS.

METHOD: We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using a sample of N = 715 FMs (85.7% female, 62.1% White, 86.7% romantic partners of individuals with elevated PTSD symptoms).

RESULTS: After dropping cross-loading items, results indicated good fit for a higher-order model of accommodation with two factors: an anger-related accommodation factor encompassed items related largely to minimising conflict, and an anxiety-related accommodation factor encompassed items related primarily to changes to the FM's activities. Accommodation was positively related to PTSD severity and negatively related to relationship satisfaction, although the factors showed somewhat distinct associations. Item Response Theory analyses indicated that the scale provided good information and robust coverage of different accommodation levels.

CONCLUSIONS: SORTS data should be analysed as both a single score as well as two factors to explore the factors' potential differential performance across treatment and relationship outcomes.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; Adult; Female; Male; Middle Aged; PTSD; Surveys and Questionnaires; anger; Family/psychology; Factor Analysis, Statistical; accommodation; TEPT; partner; *Psychometrics; *Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology/diagnosis; acomodación; couple; ira; pareja; pareja sentimental