Title

Psychometric Evaluation of the Moral Injury Events Scale

Authors

Authors

W. P. Nash; T. L. M. Carper; M. A. Mills; T. Au; A. Goldsmith;B. T. Litz

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Milit. Med.

Keywords

POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER; TRAUMATIC EVENTS; WAR VETERANS; COMBAT; CRITERION; SYMPTOMS; VALIDITY; ANXIETY; IMPACT; PTSD; Medicine, General & Internal

Abstract

Literature describing the phenomenology of the stress of combat suggests that war-zone experiences may lead to adverse psychological outcomes such as post-traumatic stress disorder not only because they expose persons to life threat and loss but also because they may contradict deeply held moral and ethical beliefs and expectations. We sought to develop and validate a measure of potentially morally injurious events as a necessary step toward studying moral injury as a possible adverse consequence of combat. We administered an 11-item, self-report Moral Injury Events Scale to active duty Marines 1 week and 3 months following war-zone deployment. Two items were eliminated because of low item-total correlations. The remaining 9 items were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis, which revealed two latent factors that we labeled perceived transgressions and perceived betrayals; these were confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis on an independent sample. The overall Moral Injury Events Scale and its two subscales had favorable internal validity, and comparisons between the 1-week and 3-month data suggested good temporal stability. Initial discriminant and concurrent validity were also established. Future research directions were discussed.

Journal Title

Military Medicine

Volume

178

Issue/Number

6

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

646

Last Page

652

WOS Identifier

WOS:000340805200009

ISSN

0026-4075

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