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Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Mississippi Scale for PTSD---Civilian Version (Civilian Mississippi Scale; Keane, Caddell & Taylor, 1988). The Civilian Mississippi Scale (CMS) was first utilized in the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS; Kulka et al., 1990) as a measure of PTSD in non-veteran samples. Items were adapted from the combat version of the instrument (Mississippi Scale for Combat PTSD; Keane et al., 1988) with the wording altered to accommodate civilian traumas. These wording changes, however, decreased the overall reliability and validity of the instrument and there is some speculation that the Civilian Mississippi Scale is a better measure of general distress than of PTSD. Data was collected in two waves. The first wave of data collection occurred during the Fall semester and this sample consisted of 350 undergraduate students. The second wave of data collection occurred during the Spring semester and this sample consisted of 469 undergraduate students, 261 males and 208 females.
The combined sample consisted of 819 participants. Participants completed the CMS, in addition to measures of PTSD, depression, general anxiety and global distress. The results of this study suggested that the CMS has good internal consistency; however, the measure was less reliable than the military version of the instrument. The CMS was sensitive to PTSD diagnosis and trauma exposure, thus establishing construct validity. Furthermore, convergent and discriminant validity were also established. The factor structure of the CMS was unstable between samples, thus indicating potential problems related to the instrument's validity. Several gender and racial/ethnic differences were noted in the expression of PTSD and in trauma exposure. Further research into the utility of the CMS for research and clinical practice is warranted.
