Impact of Event Scale: psychometric properties

IES is a measure of stress reactions after a range of traumatic events, and it is valuable for detecting individuals who require treatment.

Resource Abstract

“Background: For more than 20 years, the Impact of Event Scale (IES) has been widely used as a measure of stress reactions after traumatic events.

Aims: To review studies that evaluated the IES’s psychometric properties.

Method: Literature review.

Results: The results indicated that the IES’s two-factor structure is stable over different types of events, that it can discriminate between stress reactions at different times after the event, and that it has convergent validity with observer-diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. The use of IES in many psychopharmacological trials and outcome studies is supportive of the measure’s clinical relevance.

Conclusions: The IES is a useful measure of stress reactions after a range of traumatic events, and it is valuable for detecting individuals who require treatment.”

—Description from publisher

Resource Access

Open Access

Sundin, E. C., & Horowitz, M. J. (2002). Impact of Event Scale: Psychometric properties. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 180(3), 205–209. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.180.3.205