Iranian Journal of War and Public Health

Background: While warfare victims affected directly by war disasters, their wives and significant others are indirectly suffering from these disasters. Psychological distress that experienced by wives of veterans wit posttraumatic stress disorder definite as secondary trauma. Aim: Given lack of an instrument for evaluating the symptoms of secondary trauma stress in Iran, this study aimed to investigate of validity and reliability of Secondary Trauma Stress Scale in wives of warfare victims.

Material & Methods: warfare victims’ wives living in Yazd, Esfahan, Najafabad, and Yasujwith at least on children studying at Shahed or Isargar Schools of these cities were the target population in this study. Of this population, 365 subjects were selected by cluster sampling method. The results show that this scale has a good congruent and discriminant validity.

Results: the findings of confirmation factor analysis to evaluating of factorial validity revealed that Secondary trauma stress scale have thee subscales including intrusion, avoidance and arousal in war veterans’ families and that the factor structure of this scale is similar to the one applied to non-Iranian subjects. Cronbach's Alpha was found as 0.92 showing that the scale have good reliability. The group of wives with high mental health scored less than those with low mental health andthis approved the discriminant validity of the scale. Also, a significantly high correlation was observed amongSecondary Trauma Stress Scale, Mississippi PTSD Scale, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) and this highlights the good convergent validity of the test.

Conclusion: Secondary Trauma Stress Scale could be used as a specialized instrument for evaluation of PTSD symptoms in wives and caregivers living with people with PTSD given the approved validity and reliability of thisScale inwar veterans’ wives.