Revision and preliminary application of Chinese version of Post-traumatic Growth Inventory in adolescents experienced the Wenchuan earthquake / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective: To revise the Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) in a sample of adolescents who experienced the Wenchuan earthquake. Method: The Chinese version of PTGI together with the Children's De-pression Inventory (CDI) and Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES) were administrated among 2 samples of the middle school students from two middle schools in Chongqing city. Result: A three-factor model of PTGI (interpersonal relationship, new possibility, and personal strength) was found in the first sample by explor-atory factor analysis and was confirmed in the second sample by confirmatory analysis. The main parameters were as follows IFI=0.990, CFI=0.990, RMSEA =0.051, and X~2/df=3.082. The original five-factor model (IFI=0.987, CFI=0.981, RMSEA=0.053, and X~2/df=3.317) was also tested by confirmatory analysis and was found inferior to the three-factor model. The reliability of the revised scale was acceptable, with Crunbach's a coeffi-cients ranging from 0.66～0.85. The total score of PTGI and the score of sub-scales were moderately correlated with the intrusion scale in CRIES, with coefficients ranging from 0.19 to 0.27. The total score of PTGI and the score of sub-scales were negatively correlated with CDI, with coefficients ranging from-0.21 to-0.29. Conclusion: The newly revised adolescent version of PTGI demonstrates good structure validity and acceptable reliability. It may be a potentially good instrument to measure posttraumatic growth among Chinese adolescents.