DSM5 Severity Acute Stress or PTSD🔗

Name

TEST/DUMMY FORM (copy of National Stressful Events Survey- PTSD Short Scale/Acute Stress Disorder) (PTSD/Acute Stress)

Table Namepex_bm_str__ptsd
Construct

PTSD/Acute Stress Disorder Symptom Severity

Study Visits

V01, V02, V03

TypeIn-person/Remote Questionnaire (Parent on Self; 3 min)
Quality Control
  • Checks for missing data based on counts for items completed by each participant.
  • Verification of scoring accuracy.
  • Summary statistics to examine item-level frequencies and total scores.
  • Review of response distributions for potential outliers.
Consideration of Mental Health Symptoms Experienced During Pregnancy

The co-occurrence of psychiatric symptoms and substance use during pregnancy is well-documented (Massey et al., 2011, Massey et al., 2012). Phenotypic risk in birthing parents may affect offspring neurodevelopment through both prenatal and postnatal mechanisms, beyond direct exposure alone (Estabrook et al., 2016, Massey et al., 2016, Massey et al., 2018). These factors may confound associations between exposures and neuroimaging or neurodevelopmental outcomes, but they also represent malleable targets for prevention and early intervention. When possible, incorporating parental mental health symptoms as covariates offers a robust strategy to account for these confounding influences.

Instrument Details🔗

This measure is a combination of two measures:

  • Severity of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms-National Stressful Events Survey PTSD Short scale (NSESSS-PTSD)
  • Severity of Acute Stress Symptoms—Adult National Stressful Events Survey Acute Stress Disorder Short Scale (NSESSS-Acute stress)

The NSESSS-acute stress is a 7-item scale, 6 of which are from the NSESSS-PTSD short scale, with one additional question. As such, the measures were combined into one administration. Publications should note the combined administration. Thus, the scales are as follows:

  • Total Raw Score PTSD (Total of Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
  • Total Raw Score Acute Stress (Total of Questions 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Questionnaire prompt/instructions:

People sometimes have problems after extremely stressful events or experiences. How much have you been bothered during the PAST SEVEN (7) DAYS by each of the following problems that occurred or became worse after an extremely stressful event/experience?

In the HBCD study, a ‘Decline to answer’ option was added to all items. A ‘Don’t know’ option was also available early in data collection, but was later removed.

Two summary scores are calculated from the PCL-C:

(1) NSESS-PTSD

  • Assesses PTSD symptom severity over the past 7 days.
  • Includes 9 items (Questions 1–9), each rated from 0 to 4.
  • Total score ranges from 0 to 36; higher scores indicate greater PTSD symptom severity.
  • Calculated when at least 7 of 9 items are answered. If 1–2 items are missing, a prorated score is calculated:

Prorated Score = (Raw sum × 9) ÷ Number of answered items

(2) NSESS-Acute Stress

  • Assesses acute stress disorder symptom severity over the past 7 days.
  • Includes 7 items (Questions 1–3 and 7–10), each rated from 0 to 4.
  • Total score ranges from 0 to 28; higher scores indicate greater acute stress symptom severity.
  • Calculated when at least 6 of 7 items are answered. If 1 item is missing, a prorated score is calculated:

Prorated Score = (Raw sum × 7) ÷ Number of answered items

Prorated scores are rounded to the nearest whole number. If fewer than the minimum required number of items are answered, no total score is calculated.

Estabrook, R., Massey, S. H., Clark, C. A. C., Burns, J. L., Mustanski, B. S., Cook, E. H., O’Brien, T. C., Makowski, B., Espy, K. A., & Wakschlag, L. S. (2016). Separating family-level and direct exposure effects of smoking during pregnancy on offspring externalizing symptoms: Bridging the behavior genetic and behavior teratologic divide. Behavior Genetics, 46(3), 389–402. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9762-2

Massey, S. H., Lieberman, D. Z., Reiss, D., Leve, L. D., Shaw, D. S., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (2011). Association of clinical characteristics and cessation of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use during pregnancy. The American Journal on Addictions. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1521-0391.2010.00110.x

Massey, S. H., Mroczek, D. K., Burns, J. L., Clark, C. A. C., Espy, K. A., & Wakschlag, L. S. (2018). Positive parenting behaviors in women who spontaneously quit smoking during pregnancy: Clues to putative targets for preventive interventions. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 67, 18–24.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2018.02.003

Massey, S. H., Neiderhiser, J. M., Shaw, D. S., Leve, L. D., Ganiban, J. M., & Reiss, D. (2012). Maternal self concept as a provider and cessation of substance use during pregnancy. Addictive Behaviors, 37(8), 956–961. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2012.04.002

Massey, S. H., Reiss, D., Neiderhiser, J. M., Leve, L. D., Shaw, D. S., & Ganiban, J. M. (2016). Maternal personality traits associated with patterns of prenatal smoking and exposure: Implications for etiologic and prevention research. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 53, 48–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2015.11.010