Available literature demonstrates that psychological or psychometric assessments are standardized measures of a particular psychological variable intended to assist therapists to better understand an individual and their behavior, with the view to determining the core components of the individual’s psychological or mental health challenges, personality, IQ, or some other component (Wiger, 2012). These assessments employ a multiplicity of instruments depending on the variable or condition under scrutiny. The present paper evaluates one such instrument, referred to as the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI).
Developed by John Briere in 1995, the TSI is a 100-item psychological assessment instrument used to tap and measure a broad range of posttraumatic symptomatology (McDevitt-Murphy, Weathers & Adkins, 2005). As posited by these authors, these symptoms may include but not constrained to the adverse outcomes of rape, spousal abuse, combat, natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as horrific accidents and childhood abuse.
The instrument has various components, including a 100-item inventory formulated to assess posttraumatic stress and other traumatic events, 10 clinical scales designed to assess the extent to which the patient endorses trauma-related symptoms in counseling contexts, three validity scales designed to evaluate the consistency and accuracy of patient responses, as well as 12 critical items designed to identify potential challenges that may require instantaneous follow-ups, such as suicidal ideation, psychosis or substance abuse (Peace, Porter & Cook, 2010).
As already mentioned, the TSI is widely used by therapists in counseling contexts to detect and quantify components of adult psychopathology (e.g., psychological and mental health problems) as well as trauma-related symptomatology. The value of the TSI in counseling is that it does not only avail therapists with a normed index of symptomological anguish in patients resulting from a traumatic experience but also can capture the residual, chronic effects of trauma that occurred in a distant future, such as childhood abuse (Piedmont, 2001).
The instrument has several advantages over other personality assessment instruments, including ease of administration, good internal consistency, and incremental validity, as well as consideration of racial minorities and culture in the validity scales (Rosen, Sawehuk, Atkins, Brown, Price & Lees-Haley, 2006).
In terms of administration, it should be noted that the TSI is a self-report assessment measure, hence there are few directions required. The TSI manual is detailed in explaining how the assessment should be administered, implying that the only complicated part for the therapist is hand scoring the instrument for interpretation (Piedmont, 2001).
Going to the basics, however, the instrument is “a 100 item questionnaire where respondents indicate the frequency with which they engaged in various behaviors over the past 6 months on a (0) never to (3) often Likert-type scale” (Piedmont, 2001 para. 3). It should be noted that the therapist can also categorize the items based on the severity level of the clinical scales, with available literature demonstrating that a score of less than 49 shows that the severity level in five or more of the 10 clinical scores is low, a score within the range of 50-59 shows that the severity level is normal, while a score equal to or greater than 65 shows a high severity level (Peace et al., 2010).
The 100 items comprise 10 clinical scales, whereby five of the clinical scales ‘(Anxious Arousal, Depression, Anger/Irritability, Intrusive Experiences, Defensive Avoidance) assess symptoms closely related to the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)’ as demonstrated in the DSM-IV-TR, while the other five clinical scales ‘(Dissociation, Sexual Concerns, Dysfunctional Sexual Behavior, Impaired Self Reference, Tension-Reduction Behavior)’ assess additional symptoms frequently seen in trauma survivors, particularly victims of childhood trauma (McDevitt-Murphy et al., 2005).
As postulated by these authors “the three validity scales (Response Level, Inconsistent Response, and Atypical Response) measure exaggerated, inconsistent, or unusual responding” (p. 63). The therapist’s main task, according to Piedmont (2001), is to convert the raw scores on these scales into age and gender-specific T-scores, with scores greater or equal to a T-score of 65 warranting interpretation for possible trauma-related symptoms.
In terms of interpretation of results, Briere (n.d.) suggests that “common TSI scale profiles are presented in the professional manual, with brief interpretive suggestions based on clinical experience, normative information, and the results of scale-level factor analyses” (para. 8). Additionally, results from the TSI can also be interpreted by using a scoring program with the capacity to not only grade and profile TSI and clinical scales, but also control for the race on validity scales with the view to responding to three summary scores that are predicated upon confirmatory factor examination, namely Trauma, Self, and Dysphasia. The test results are used in assisting the therapist to make well-informed decisions on whether a client is suffering from trauma and its associated effects (Rosen et al., 2006).
Overall, this paper has discussed several issues relating to the TSI, including providing a description of the instrument, shedding light on why it is used and how it is administered within counseling contexts, and also demonstrating how the test results are interpreted and used in treatment. From the discussion, it is evident that the TSI is an effective and highly consistent instrument in tapping and measuring a broad range of posttraumatic symptomatology and other related effects due to its validity scales and comprehensive clinical scales.
References
Briere, J. (n.d.). Trauma symptom inventory (TSI). Web.
McDevitt-Murphy, M.E., Weathers, F.W., & Adkins, J.W. (2005). The use of the trauma symptom inventory in the assessment of PGTSD symptoms. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 18(1), 63-67.
Peace, K.A., Porter, S., & Cook, B.L. (2010). Investigating differences in truthful and fabricated symptoms of traumatic stress overtime. Psychological Injury and Law, 3(2), 118-129.
Piedmont, R.L. (2001). Test review: The trauma symptom inventory (TSI). Association for Assessment in Counseling. Web.
Rosen, G.M., Sawehuk, C.N., Atkins, D.C., Brown, M., Price, J.R., & Lees-Haley, P.R. (2006). Risk of false positives when identifying maligned profiles using the Trauma Symptom Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 86(3), 329-333.
Wiger, D.E. (2012). The psychotherapy documentation primer (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.