The Spanish Posttraumatic Growth Inventory - Short Form in Adult Survivors in Child Sexual Abuse

Background: Child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors can experience psychological changes and growth as a consequence of their victimization experience, known as Posttraumatic Growth (PTG). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the dimensionality, reliability and validity of the Spanish version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory - Short Form (PTGI-SF) (Tedeschi & Calhoun. 1996) in a sample of 104 adult survivors of CSA. Method: Different models of PTGI-SF validated in different languages and samples were tested using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Results: The results showed that the original five-factor model exhibited the best goodness of fit. Internal consistency was adequate for the general scale, and acceptable for the five different factors. Furthermore, positive correlations were found between the PTGI-SF total score and psychosocial and mental health problems, as well as gender differences, with women tending to report more PTG than men. Conclusions: These results suggest that the Spanish PTGI-SF is a brief, reliable, valid self-report measure for assessing PTG experienced by CSA survivors.