INTERNATIONAL TRAUMA EXPOSURE MEASURE (ITEM)

The ITEM is a checklist developed to measure exposure to traumatic life events in a manner consistent with the definition of trauma exposure in the 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases. The ITEM measures exposure to 21 different traumatic life events across different developmental periods: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The ITEM is freely available to all interested parties and may be used without permission. 

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Please note that the ITEM uses educational descriptors to aid respondents in accurately identifying the period of their life in which their trauma occurred. The educational descriptors can be amended for the context in which you wish to use the ITEM. Additionally, users may wish to only measure lifetime exposure in which case the developmental periods can be removed.

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Please click on the version of the ITEM that you would like.

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_English

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Arabic

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Estonian

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_French

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Danish

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_German

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Italian

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Polish

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Portuguese

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Spanish

The International Trauma Exposure Measure_Turkish

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Key publication: 

Hyland, P., Karatzias, T., Shevlin, M., McElroy, E., Ben-Ezra, M., Cloitre, M., & Brewin, C. R. (2021). Does requiring trauma exposure affect rates of ICD-11 PTSD and complex PTSD? Implications for DSM–5. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 13(2), 133–141. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000908​

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