Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for Dsm-5 (Pcl-5). Latent Structure Analysis and Measurement Invariance in a Sample of Italian Health Workers during the Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a significant threat to health workers (HW) in terms of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and disorder (PTSD). Over the years, alternative PTSD structures have been proposed (DSM-5, Dysphoria, Dysphoric Arousal, Anhedonia, Externalizing Behaviors, Hybrid) and tested. To date, no studies have addressed this issue focusing on HW during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the fit of alternative PTSD structures in two Italian samples HW during the COVID-19 pandemic, and university students in a pre-pandemic context. A total of 580 HW and 451 students completed the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) assessing PTSS. Confirmatory factor analysis investigated the best PTSD structure in each sample;measurement invariance was also inspected. The Anhedonia structure performed best in both samples;this model showed configural, metric, variances and covariances invariance. Results pave the way to the use of the PCL-5 to tailor intervention supporting HW during the pandemic.