Hispanic ethnicity and Caucasian race: Relations with posttraumatic stress disorder's factor structure in clinic-referred youth

Language

English

Publication Date

9-1-2015

Journal

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy

DOI

10.1037/tra0000068

PMID

26147448

Abstract

The severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms is linked to race and ethnicity, albeit with contradictory findings (reviewed in Alcántara, Casement, & Lewis-Fernández, 2013; Pole, Gone, & Kulkarni, 2008). We systematically examined Caucasian (n = 3,767) versus non-Caucasian race (n = 2,824) and Hispanic (n = 2,395) versus non-Hispanic ethnicity (n = 3,853) as candidate moderators of PTSD's 5-factor model structural parameters (Elhai et al., 2013). The sample was drawn from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's Core Data Set, currently the largest national data set of clinic-referred children and adolescents exposed to potentially traumatic events. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we tested the invariance of PTSD symptom structural parameters by race and ethnicity. Chi-square difference tests and goodness-of-fit values showed statistical equivalence across racial and ethnic groups in the factor structure of PTSD and in mean item-level indicators of PTSD symptom severity. Results support the structural invariance of PTSD's 5-factor model across the compared racial and ethnic groups. Furthermore, results indicated equivalent item-level severity across racial and ethnic groups; this supports the use of item-level comparisons across these groups.

Keywords

adolescent, child, European Continental Ancestry Group, factor analysis, statistical, female, Hispanic Americans, humans, male, models, psychological, psychiatric status rating scales, Severity of Illness Index, stress disorders, post-traumatic

Published Open-Access

yes

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