Hispanic ethnicity and Caucasian race: Relations with posttraumatic stress disorder's factor structure in clinic-referred youth
Publication Date
9-1-2015
Journal
Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy
DOI
10.1037/tra0000068
PMID
26147448
Published Open-Access
no
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
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.