Traumatic Stress Schedule (TSS)

Norris, 1990

Description

The TSS interview measures essential information about potentially traumatic events. The TSS allows for assessment of 10 events such as combat, robbery or motor vehicle accident as well as one unspecified event.

For each of the events, 12 detailed closed- and open-ended questions that examine dimensions of loss, scope, threat to life and physical injury, blame and familiarity are asked. It also prompts for an assessment of an event that changed an important aspect of life such as residence, job or personal relations. This measurement can be used for clinical and research purposes.

Sample Item

In the past year, were you in a motor vehicle accident serious enough to cause injury to one or more passengers? (How many people were directly involved in this accident, including passengers of other vehicles as well as your own? What was the dollar value of property you had damaged, if any? Etc.)

Version

Spanish version.

References

Norris, F. H. (1990). Screening for traumatic stress: A scale of use in the general population. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20, 1704-1718. (includes measure in its entirety)

Additional Reviews

Orsillo (2001) (PDF) p. 302

Orsillo, Susan M. (2001). Measures for acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. In M.M. Antony & S.M. Orsillo (Eds.), Practitioner's guide to empirically based measures of anxiety (pp. 255-307). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. PILOTS ID 24368

Norris and Hamblen (2004) (PDF) p. 66

Norris, Fran H. & Hamblen, Jessica L. (2004). Standardized self-report measures of civilian trauma and PTSD. In J.P. Wilson, T.M. Keane & T. Martin (Eds.), Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD (pp. 63-102). New York: Guilford Press. PILOTS ID 18638

To Obtain Scale

Fran Norris, PhD
Department of Psychiatry
Dartmouth College
National Center for PTSD, VA Medical Center (116D)
215 N. Main St.
White River Junction, VT 05009
Email: Fran.Norris@dartmouth.edu.

Measure availability: Information on measures is available to everyone. However, the assessment tools themselves can only be distributed to qualified mental health professionals and researchers. We maintain measures developed by affiliated staff of the National Center for PTSD.