Comparison of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale Versus the Clinician-Administered Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale in Domestic Violence Survivors

The posttraumatic diagnostic scale (PDS) is a self-report instrument for PTSD that is simple to administer and has demonstrated good psychometric properties. We compared the PDS with the gold standard clinician administered PTSD scale (CAPS) diagnostic interview for PTSD. We assessed 138 women who were victims of domestic violence using both the PDS and the CAPS. Findings confirmed that PTSD develops at a high base rate in this sample. The PDS generally performed well in relation to the CAPS although with a tendency to overdiagnose PTSD. The findings lend further support to the use of the PDS as a diagnostic tool for PTSD but indicate that it is better at identifying survivors with PTSD than those without the disorder.