Psychometric Evaluation of the Moral Injury Events Scale
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
ISSN
0026-4075
Recommended Citation
"Psychometric Evaluation of the Moral Injury Events Scale" (2013). Faculty Bibliography 2010s. 4460.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/facultybib2010/4460
Comments
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