A psychometric analysis of the Early Trauma Inventory-Short Form in Colombia: CTT and Rasch model.

BACKGROUND: Potential childhood traumatic experiences increase risk for mental and physical health disorders and their precise assessment can help to promote health prevention and promotion strategies for countries with limited data and measurement strategies like Colombia. OBJECTIVE: The goal of the present study is to strengthen evidence for the validity of scores from an adapted version of the Early Trauma Inventory self report-short form (ETI-SF) using Item Response Theory and by assessing factorial invariance across gender and education level. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The study assessed a total of 1909 Colombian participants (66.16 % women, 32.16 % men, 1.68 % other gender; age range 18-72 years old). METHODS: Participants answered the ETI-SF via a web-based sampling strategy. RESULTS: The total scores of the scale showed good reliability coefficients (α = 0.81 and ω = 0.60). A specific analysis for the subscales showed good reliability for the emotional, physical, and sexual trauma subscales (αs and ωs >0.64), while general trauma showed lower than accepted reliability values (α =0.56 and ω = 0.37). Most of the individual items of the scale showed good calibration. The factorial invariance analysis suggests the possibility of some gender and educational differences. CONCLUSIONS: The study confirms particularly high rates of potential childhood traumatic experiences in Colombia and complement data for specific trauma types. Overall, the ETI-SF is confirmed as useful for Colombia, which highlights this scale as a good tool to use for public health assessment. Future research can continue the integration of diverse methods for estimating the quality of the scale.

Aproximaciones evolutivas y psicopatología: Teoría de historia de vida y sistemas psicobiológicos en el trastorno de personalidad límite / Evolutionary approaches and psychopathology: Life history theory and psychobiological systems for borderline personality disorder

La psicología clínica requiere de constantes desarrollos científicos que lleven a una explicación de la complejidad de los trastornos mentales y sus bases causales. Las aproximaciones evolutivas han mostrado ser de particular poder heurístico para esta tarea. Entre ellas, la Teoría de Historia de Vida (THV) incorpora avances teóricos y empíricos novedosos y significativos. No obstante, existe la necesidad de incorporar investigación y aproximaciones evolutivas adicionales de interés. Por lo tanto, en este artículo se propondrá el potencial de integración al ampliar la causalidad evolutiva en conjunción con aproximaciones de sistemas psicobiológicos de conducta. Para esto se utilizará como ejemplo el Trastorno Límite de Personalidad, ampliando su comprensión como una interacción de causas próximas entre los sistemas psicobiológicos de estrés y apego, dentro del marco de causas últimas de THV. Finalmente, se demarcarán aspectos que nutren el campo clínico con implicaciones para la evaluación y los dominios de intervención.(AU)

Clinical psychology requires continuous research to encourage integrative explanations for the complexity of mental disorders and their underlying causes. Biological evolutionary approaches have shown particular heuristic power for this endeavor. Life history theory (LHT) is an evolutionary model that incorporates novel and significant theoretical and empirical advances. However, there is a growing need for the incorporation of other successful evolutionary approaches. Thus, the goal of the present paper is to propose potential integrative connections between evolutionary causal modes, behavior systems, and LHT. For this, borderline personality disorder is used as an example of a condition that can be understood as an interaction between stress and attachment psychobiological systems (proximate causes), within the framework of ultimate causes clarified by LHT. To conclude, we will outline several aspects that could enhance the clinical field with implications for assessment and intervention.(AU)

Flexibilidad relacional y estrés parental / Relational Flexibility and Parental Stress

El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la relación entre niveles altos y moderados de estrés parental y relaciones derivadas, en una muestra de padres y estudiantes de pregrado. Para este estudio se utilizó un diseño de comparación entre grupos con una medida pretest. La muestra total se dividió en tres grupos, trece padres con niveles altos en el Índice de Estrés Parental (IEP) fueron asignados a un grupo, otros trece padres con puntajes moderados en el IEP se asignaron a un segundo grupo y trece estudiantes de pregrado fueron asignados a un grupo control. Inicialmente, todos los participantes fueron expuestos a un video de un niño presentando conductas disruptivas. Seguido de esto, todos los participantes fueron expuestos a un procedimiento de entrenamiento en discriminaciones condicionales A-B y A-C; el grupo de estímulos A correspondía a figuras sin sentido, el grupo B a conductas disruptivas de los niños y el grupo C de estímulos a conductas positivas de los padres. Luego se entrenaron relaciones mixtas (A-B y A-C), y finalmente se evaluaron relaciones de transitividad y equivalencia. Los resultados muestran que los participantes con estrés alto presentaron menor precisión de respuesta y mayores latencias de respuesta en las relaciones derivadas, comparado con el grupo de estrés moderado y control. Lo anterior indica que los padres que presentan altos niveles de estrés parental tienen mayor dificultad para establecer nuevas relaciones de estímulos, especialmente aquellos con valencia emocional. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones a nivel clínico, específicamente en la flexibilidad relacional.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between higher and moderate parental stress scores and derived relations in parents and undergraduate students. A group comparison design with a pretest measure was used in this study. The sample size was divided in three different groups, thirteen parents with high scores on the Parental Stress Index (PSI) were assigned to one group, other thirteen parents with moderate scores on the PSI were assigned to a second group, and thirteen undergraduate students were assigned to a control group. Initially all participants were exposed to a video of a child exhibiting disruptive behaviors. Following this all participants were exposed to a conditional discrimination training A-B and A-C, one stimulus set A corresponded to nonsense figures, a second stimulus set B corresponded to children's disruptive behaviors, and the set C to positive parenting behaviors. Then mixed relations (A-B and A-C) were trained followed by transitivity and equivalence tests. The results show that participants with high scores on the PSI exhibited low response accuracy and longer response latencies during derived relations compared to the control group and moderate stress. These results suggest that parents with high PSI scores, have greater difficulty in establishing new relations between stimuli, especially stimuli loaded with emotional value. These findings have implications at clinical level, specifically in relational flexibility.