A psychometric evaluation of the National Stressful Events Survey for PTSD-Short Scale (NSESSS-PTSD) among Korean psychiatric outpatients

The National Stressful Events Survey for PTSD-Short Scale (NSESSS-PTSD) is a brief screening measure for DSM-5 PTSD that has not been evaluated for its psychometric properties in clinical population. We developed a Korean version of the original English scale through translation-back translation process and examined its reliability and validity among treatment-seeking adults at a psychiatric outpatient unit of a university-affiliated hospital in South Korea. The sample comprised adults diagnosed with PTSD (n = 100) and other psychiatric disorders (n = 134). The NSESSS-PTSD, the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were used to determine validity and reliability. The findings show modest test-retest reliability (r = .43), good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .81), high convergent validity (r = .78) with PCL-5 and good concurrent validity with the BDI (r = .55) and BAI (r = .50), respectively. A cut-off score of 16 best predicted PTSD from other psychiatric disorders with specificity of .90 and sensitivity of .87. This study reveals sound psychometric properties of the Korean version of the NSESSS-PTSD and supports its use in the clinical population.