The study evaluates the validity of the PCL-C scale for screening victims of traffic accidents for post-traumatic stress disorder. One hundred and fourteen victims of traffic accidents participated in this study by completing the scale comprising 17 items, divided into three criteria related to the traumatic event. The Cronbach coefficient was used in order to verify the internal consistency with a value of 0.94. The exploratory factor analysis was carried out to verify the construct validity, including the analysis of the main components and factor loadings with Kaiser normalization and orthogonal rotation by the oblimin method. The results of exploratory factor analysis indicate that de construct is one-dimensional. For the suitability of the cutoff point, sensitivity and specificity analysis was carried out through the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. The cutoff point which obtained the greatest sensitivity (1) was 68 points with specificity of 0.842, this being the most suitable value for the identification of the disorder. The scale for the screening of post-traumatic stress disorder showed reliable psychometric qualities.
Post-traumatic stress disorder; Traffic accidents; Validation of tests; Factor analysis; Reliability
