HPRT Screening Instruments on Windows Pc

The HTQ-Revised is a checklist written by HPRT similar in design to the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist – 25 (HSCL-25) for depression. It inquires about a variety of trauma events, as well as the emotional symptoms considered to be uniquely associated with trauma, i.e. post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The current version of the HTQ, Part I: Trauma Events was expanded to include 40 traumatic events, with a simple Yes/No response to each question. The events listed were changed to better reflect the experiences of civilian survivors of man-made and natural disaster.

In Part II: Personal Description, respondents are allowed to record, in an open-ended manner, the worst event that they had experienced during the period of exposure to mass violence and persecution. It provides the clinician with insight into the respondents’ own subjective experiences and relative weight that is assigned to a particular event.

Part III: Brain Injury inquires about direct injury to the head as well as suffocation, starvation and near drowning. Brain injury is often associated with psychiatric symptoms and impaired social functioning.

HPRT finished a 6-year study entitled “Brian Structural Abnormalities and Mental Health Sequelae in South Vietnamese Ex-Political Detainees Who Survived Traumatic Head Injury and Torture (2009),” funded by our National Institute of Health. Published in the “Archives of General Psychiatry”, our conclusions are:
For the first time since the original work of Eitinger and Strom, which was done soon after WWII, and prior to the diagnosis of PTSD, Traumatic Head Injury, has been demonstrated to be strongly related to psychiatric morbidity in survivors of extreme violence.

In Part IV: Trauma Syptoms the first 16 trauma symptom items are derived from the DSM-IV PTSD criteria and include 40 additional symptom items that focus on the impact of trauma on an individual’s perception of his/her ability to function in everyday life. In HPRT’s experience, these symptoms are extremely important because traumatized people are usually more concerned about social functioning than about emotional distress.

In Part V scoring is reviewed. Screening instruments should be administered by health care workers under the supervision and support of a psychiatrist, medical doctor, and/or psychiatric nurse. They were not designed to be used as a self-report; no checklist can replace the role of a mental health professional.

In HPRT’s state-of-the-art update, on our two most useful screening instruments entitled “Measuring Trauma, Measuring Torture,” we offer a mixture of history, a review of the scientific literature and practical suggestions for those who wish to adapt these instruments systematically to other societies facing the physical and psychological sequelae of war, mass violence, and torture!

Both instruments are ethnographic tools that can provide psychological and socio-cultural insights into violence and its consequences.

Results can lead to better clinical care and public policy. Both instruments help the clinician to make a diagnosis because they show the pattern and intensity of symptoms. They help “open the door” to a better understanding of the different cultural meanings of trauma, as well as its psychological meaning.

The HTQ-R and HSCL-25 are cited in over 500 peer reviewed journals and are considered the Gold Standard in the field of Global Mental Health.

If you would like to purchase a copy of Measuring Trauma, Measuring Torture, please go to HPRT's Website www.hprt-cambridge.org.

If you would like additional information please see:

Lavelle, James, "Measuring Trauma, Measuring Torture." Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery. Ed. Richard F. Mollica. Cambridge: HPRT, 2011. 506-37. (See website)

The DSM V version of the HTQ-R will be available in late 2017.

Application developed by seniors at Tufts University School of Engineering.

Application

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