Database Tools To Assess Child Trauma
 The SAMHSA-funded National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) has prepared and released a free online searchable database that provides clinicians and researchers with in-depth information to enable them to choose the best instrument to assess children and adolescents who have experienced trauma.
The Measures Review Database fills an important gap in the field. The purpose of the database is to promote the use of state-of-the-art measures for improved clinical intervention and research on child trauma.
The database currently provides information on 62 assessment tools for different populations, including children and adolescents as well as parents and caregivers. Reviews indicate the degree to which a specific assessment tool has been used with diverse cultural and ethnic groups and with children exposed to different types of traumas. Additional assessment tools will be added to the database in the coming months.
Each database review provides the following information:
A general description of the measure Domains the measure assesses Evidence validating or supporting the measure's use Scoring and interpretation of test results Available languages and psychometrics of translated versions Age range Summary of studies that have used the measure Training for administration and scoring of the measure Pros and cons of using each measure Information on how to obtain the measure.
The Measures Review Database has been a high priority project of the NCTSN. Chandra Ghosh Ippen, Ph.D., of the NCTSN's Early Trauma Treatment Network at the University of California, San Francisco, led the project.
The database debuted in early November 2006.
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network's goal is to improve the quality, effectiveness, and availability of services for traumatized youth. The National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, at both the Duke University Medical Center and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, coordinates the NCTSN.
For more information about the Measures Review Database and other topics related to child traumatic stress, visit www.nctsn.org. 
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Developing the Review Template
In 2002, during the first meeting of the NCTSN Measures Committee, members raised the possibility of creating a database of evaluation measures and formed a subcommittee to develop criteria. This subcommittee identified criteria by reviewing the literature on psychometrics and measure development; consulting with experts in the field; consulting with NCTSN members regarding important psychometric, clinical, and practical properties of measures; and gathering information from other templates developed and used by NCTSN Centers.
The goal was to develop a user-friendly measure review template that contained not only descriptive and psychometric fields, but information about the clinical use of the measure with diverse populations. The template was submitted for review to NCTSN consultants. Once the final version was approved, subcommittee members developed a brief version of the template that would be available on the NCTSN Web site and would contain searchable fields and other key information. For more details, visit the NCTSN Web site at www.nctsn.org. |
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