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Impact of Event Scale

Impact of Life Event Scale is a 15-item measure of the current subjective distress felt by the respondent related to a specific potentially stressful life event. This scale includes two sub-scales: intrusion and avoidance.

Categories

Geographies Tested: United States of America

Populations Included: Female, Male

Age Range: Adults

Items:

On (date) you experienced (life event)
Below is a list of comments made by people after stressful life events. Please check each item, indicating how frequently these comments were true for you DURING THE PAST SEVEN DAYs. If they did not occur during that time, please mark the "not at all" column.

Intrusion
1. I thought about it when I didn't mean to.
2. I had trouble falling or staying asleep, because of pictures or thoughts about it that came into my mind.
3. I had waves of strong feelings about it.
4. I had dreams about it.
5. Pictures about it popped into my mind.
6. Other things kept making me think about it.
7. Any reminder brought back feelings about it.

Avoidance
8. I avoided letting myself get upset when I thought about it or was reminded of it.
9. I tried to remove it from memory.
10. I stayed away from reminders of it.
11. I felt as if it hasn't happened or it wasn't real.
12. I tried not to talk about it.
13. I was aware that I still had a lot of feelings about it, but I didn't deal with them.
14. I tried not to think about it.
15. My feelings about it were kind of numb.

Response Options:
Not at all
Rarely
Sometimes
Often

Scoring Procedures

The mean is calculated for both the sub-scales and total scale scores.

Original Citation

Horowitz, M., Wilner, N., & Alvarez, W. (1979). Impact of Event Scale: A measure of subjective stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, 41(3), 209-218.


Psychometric Score

Ease of Use Score

Scoring breakdown

Formative Research

Qualitative Research

Existing Literature/Theoretical Framework

Field Expert Input

Cognitive Interviews / Pilot Testing

Reliability

Internal

Test-retest

Interrater

Validity

Content

Face

Criterion (gold-standard)

Construct

KEY

Ease of Use

Readability

Scoring Clarity

Length

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