The revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-r) is a 22-item self-report measure that assesses subjective distress caused by traumatic events. It contains three subscales: intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal. Scores above 24 indicate clinical levels of post-traumatic stress, while scores of 33 or higher suggest a probable PTSD diagnosis. Even higher scores of 37 or more have been linked to impaired immune system functioning many years later. The IES-r is useful for measuring the effects of both acute and everyday stressors.
The revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-r) is a 22-item self-report measure that assesses subjective distress caused by traumatic events. It contains three subscales: intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal. Scores above 24 indicate clinical levels of post-traumatic stress, while scores of 33 or higher suggest a probable PTSD diagnosis. Even higher scores of 37 or more have been linked to impaired immune system functioning many years later. The IES-r is useful for measuring the effects of both acute and everyday stressors.
Original Description:
The Impact of Events Scale is used to diagnose PTSD
The revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-r) is a 22-item self-report measure that assesses subjective distress caused by traumatic events. It contains three subscales: intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal. Scores above 24 indicate clinical levels of post-traumatic stress, while scores of 33 or higher suggest a probable PTSD diagnosis. Even higher scores of 37 or more have been linked to impaired immune system functioning many years later. The IES-r is useful for measuring the effects of both acute and everyday stressors.
The revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-r) is a 22-item self-report measure that assesses subjective distress caused by traumatic events. It contains three subscales: intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal. Scores above 24 indicate clinical levels of post-traumatic stress, while scores of 33 or higher suggest a probable PTSD diagnosis. Even higher scores of 37 or more have been linked to impaired immune system functioning many years later. The IES-r is useful for measuring the effects of both acute and everyday stressors.
INSTRUCTIONS: Below is a list of difficulties people sometimes have after stressful life events. Please read each item, and then indicate how distressing each difficulty has been for you DURING THE PAST SEVEN DAYS with respect to _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _(event) that occurred on _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _(date). How much have you been distressed or bothered by these difficulties? Not at all
A little bit
Moderately
Quite a bit
Extremely
0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
2 2 2 2
3 3 3 3
4 4 4 4
0 0
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
0 0 0
1 1 1
2 2 2
3 3 3
4 4 4
1. Any reminder brought back feelings
about it 2. I had trouble staying asleep 3. Other things kept making me think about it. 4. I felt irritable and angry 5. I avoided letting myself get upset when I thought about it or was reminded of it 6. I thought about it when I didn't mean to 7. I felt as if it hadn't happened or wasn't real. 8. I stayed away from reminders of it. 9. Pictures about it popped into my mind. 10. I was jumpy and easily startled. 11. I tried not to think about it. 12. I was aware that I still had a lot of feelings about it, but I didn't deal with them. 13. My feelings about it were kind of numb. 14. I found myself acting or feeling like I was back at that time. 15. I had trouble falling asleep. 16. I had waves of strong feelings about it. 17. I tried to remove it from my memory. 18. I had trouble concentrating. 19. Reminders of it caused me to have physical reactions, such as sweating, trouble breathing, nausea, or a pounding heart. 20. I had dreams about it. 21. I felt watchful and on-guard. 22. I tried not to talk about it. Total IES-R Score:- - - - - - - -
Weiss, D.S. (2007). The Impact of Event Scale-Revised. In J.P. Wilson, & T.M. Keane (Eds.) Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD: a practitioner's handbook (2nd ed., pp. 168-189). New York: Guilford Press.
AETR2N
22
1113/2012
Revised Impact of Event Scale (22 questions):
The revised version of the Impact of Event Scale (IES-r) has seven additional questions and a scoring range of 0 to 88. On this test, scores that exceed 24 can be quite meaningful. High scores have the following associations. Score (IES-r)
24 or more
33 and above 37 or more
Consequence
PTSD is a clinical concern.6 Those with scores this high
who do not have full PTSD will have partial PTSD or at least some of the symptoms. This represents the best cutoff for a probable diagnosis of PTSD.7 This is high enough to suppress your immune system's functioning (even 10 years after an impact event).8
The IES-R is very helpful in measuring the affect of routine life stress, everyday traumas and acute stress References:
1. Horowitz, M. Wilner, N. & Alvarez, W. (1979). Impact of Event Scale: A measure of subjective stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, 41, 209-218.
2. Weiss, D.S., & Marmar, C.R. (1997). The Impact of Event Scale-Revised. In J.P. Wilson & T.M. Keane (Eds.), Assessing Psychological Trauma and PTSD (pp.399-411). New York: Guilford.
3. Hutchins, E. & Devilly, G.J. (2005). Impact of Events Scale. Victim's Web Site. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
http://www.swin.edu.au/victims/resources/assessment/ptsd/ies.html Coffey, S.F. & Berglind, G. (2006). Screening for PTSD in motor vehicle accident survivors using PSS-SR and IES. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 19 (1): 119-128. Neal, L.A., Walter, B., Rollins, J., et al. (1994). Convergent Validity of Measures of PostTraumatic Stress Disorder in a Mixed Military and Civilian Population. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 7 (3): 447-455. Asukai, N. Kato, H. et al. (2002). Reliability and validity of the Japanese-language version of the Impact of event scale-revised (IES-R-J). Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 190 (3): 175182. Creamer, M. Bell, R. & Falilla, S. (2002). Psychometric properties of the Impact of Event ScaleRevised. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 41: 1489-1496. Kawamura, N. Yoshiharu, K. & Nozomu, A. (2001) Suppression of Cellular Immunity in Men with a Past History of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry. 158: 484486
