Leiden University Student Repository

Velden, Lisanne van der (2025)

Evaluation of the CAPS-5 in refugee patients with a non-Western background

Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)

Objective: The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) is the gold standard to assess post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the CAPS-5 was developed and validated in Western populations, many clinicians and researchers also use it to assess PTSD in non-Western refugee populations. In this study we investigated whether PTSD as assessed with the CAPS-5 has the same structure and meaning across trauma-exposed, treatment-seeking individuals with either a Dutch (i.e. Western) background or a non-Western refugee background. Method: We evaluated commonly accepted DSM-5 PTSD factor models and tested different levels of measurement invariance (configural and scalar invariance) in a clinical sample of non-Western refugee patients (N = 710) and Dutch patients (N = 1162) suffering from prolonged complaints of psychotrauma, using confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). Results: CFAs showed that the Hybrid model of PTSD fit the data best in the Dutch and non-Western refugee...Show moreObjective: The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) is the gold standard to assess post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the CAPS-5 was developed and validated in Western populations, many clinicians and researchers also use it to assess PTSD in non-Western refugee populations. In this study we investigated whether PTSD as assessed with the CAPS-5 has the same structure and meaning across trauma-exposed, treatment-seeking individuals with either a Dutch (i.e. Western) background or a non-Western refugee background. Method: We evaluated commonly accepted DSM-5 PTSD factor models and tested different levels of measurement invariance (configural and scalar invariance) in a clinical sample of non-Western refugee patients (N = 710) and Dutch patients (N = 1162) suffering from prolonged complaints of psychotrauma, using confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). Results: CFAs showed that the Hybrid model of PTSD fit the data best in the Dutch and non-Western refugee subsample, as well as in the combined sample, indicating that configural invariance was met. The model representing scalar invariance showed a worse fit compared to the model representing configural invariance, indicating that factor loadings and/or symptom severity differed between the subsamples. Further investigation showed that this result could mainly be attributed to non-Western refugee patients often manifesting higher scores on the CAPS-5 items than Dutch patients. Conclusions: Non-Western refugee patients showed a similar structure of DSM-5 PTSD symptoms as Dutch patients. Furthermore, the relative contribution of the majority of symptoms to its belonging symptom cluster was similar between non-Western refugee patients and Dutch patients. This meant that both groups understood these symptoms in the same way. However, non-Western refugee patients often manifested a higher symptom severity than Dutch patients.Show less

PTSD, CAPS-5, measurement invariance, refugees, non-Western

Author

Velden, Lisanne van der

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Clinical and Health Psychology

Supervisors

Krause-Utz, A.D.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en