Psychometric evaluation of the Continuous Traumatic Stress Response Scale under intensified national threat.
Goral Aviva A, Aharonson-Daniel Limor L
The Continuous Traumatic Stress Response Scale (CTSR) was developed to assess traumatic stress responses under ongoing threat. This study evaluated whether the original 11-item, three-factor CTSR structure retained psychometric support after the October 7, 2023, attacks and subsequent war in Israel. The cross-sectional confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) sample used each participant's first available assessment, yielding 756 unique participants; longitudinal analyses included 337 participants who completed both waves. CFA supported the prespecified three-factor structure of exhaustion/detachment, rage/betrayal, and fear/helplessness, CFI = .994, TLI = .992, RMSEA = .069, 90% CI [.059, .079], SRMR = .048, with standardized loadings from .69 to .90. A one-factor model showed acceptable but weaker fit, and parallel robust maximum likelihood analyses favored the three-factor model per Akaike and Bayesian information criteria. Longitudinal CFA supported temporal measurement invariance; latent mean analyses showed no significant change in exhaustion/detachment or rage/betrayal and a small decrease in fear/helplessness. Multigroup CFA supported measurement invariance across sex and age, whereas trauma-exposure invariance was supported only for a one-factor sensitivity model. Internal consistency was high for the total scale, Cronbach's α = .908, McDonald's ω = .909, and adequate-to-good for subscales. CTSR scores showed good temporal stability, ICC = .812; strong associations with PTSD symptoms, ρ = .699, and functional impairment, ρ = .701; and higher scores among trauma-exposed participants, d = 0.37. Findings support the CTSR as a valuable research measure and encourage continued evaluation of its three-factor structure under ongoing threat.