Research Article Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Factor Structure in the Context of DSM-IV Traumatic Events

Copyright © 2012 Princess E. Osei-Bonsu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Studies examining the dimensionality of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) have yielded varying results. To date, no study has investigated the measure’s factor structure in the context of DSM-defined traumatic events. The present study examined the structure in an undergraduate student sample (N = 379) reporting DSM-IV Criterion-A potentially traumatic events. Con-firmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not support the original five-factor structure. Follow-up exploratory factor analysis and CFA on random halves of the sample showed poor model fit for 1-, 3-, and 7-factor models. Results suggest that the PTGI factor structure is unclear amongst individuals with DSM-IV traumatic events, and continued use of the total score is most appropriate. Future directions including the utility of the PTGI factors are discussed. 1