Skip to main content

The centrality of event scale: a measure of integrating a trauma into one's identity and its relation to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Berntsen, D; Rubin, DC
February 2006

We introduce a new scale that measures how central an event is to a person's identity and life story. For the most stressful or traumatic event in a person's life, the full 20-item Centrality of Event Scale (CES) and the short 7-item scale are reliable (alpha's of .94 and .88, respectively) in a sample of 707 undergraduates. The scale correlates .38 with PTSD symptom severity and .23 with depression. The present findings are discussed in relation to previous work on individual differences related to PTSD symptoms. Possible connections between the CES and measures of maladaptive attributions and rumination are considered along with suggestions for future research.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

DOI

Publication Date

February 2006

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Related Subject Headings

  • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
  • Social Identification
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Psychometrics
  • Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
  • Memory
  • Male
  • Life Change Events
  • Identification, Psychological
  • Humans
 

DOI

Publication Date

February 2006

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Related Subject Headings

  • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
  • Social Identification
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Psychometrics
  • Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
  • Memory
  • Male
  • Life Change Events
  • Identification, Psychological
  • Humans