The LEC (Blake et al., 1990 ) is a 17-item, self-report measure designed to screen for potentially traumatic events (PTEs) in a respondent’s lifetime. The LEC was designed as a companion measure for the CAPS-IV. The LEC assesses exposure to 16 events known to potentially result in PTSD and includes one additional item which allows for a respondent to indicate another extraordinarily stressful event not captured by the first 16 items. For each event, respondents are asked to choose one or more response, including happened to me, witnessed it, learned about it, not sure, and doesn’t apply. The LEC has demonstrated convergent validity with other measures designed to assess exposure to PTEs (Gray, Litz, Hsu, & Lombardo, 2004 (link)). In Sample 1, the LEC was used to assess exposure to PTEs and identify the index event; the CAPS was then used to assess whether the index event met Criterion A.
This was a highly traumatized sample: On average, participants endorsed directly experiencing 6.95 PTE categories (SD = 3.34). Using the LEC categories, the most frequently endorsed category was physical assault (n = 127, 76.0%); followed by transportation accident (n = 120, 71.9%); assault with a weapon (n = 108, 64.7%); life threatening illness or injury (n = 96, 57.5%); sudden, unexpected death of someone close (n = 96, 57.5%); natural disaster (n = 86, 51.5%); combat/warzone exposure (n = 83, 49.7%); fire or explosion (n = 77, 46.1%); serious accident (n = 70, 41.9%); exposure to toxic substance (n = 60, 35.9%); unwanted sexual experience other than sexual assault (n = 58, 34.7%); sexual assault (n = 53, 31.7%); causing serious injury, harm, or death to someone else (n = 44, 26.4%); other severe human suffering (n = 41, 24.6%); witnessing sudden, violent death (n = 33, 19.8%); and captivity (n = 18, 10.8%).
This was a highly traumatized sample: On average, participants endorsed directly experiencing 6.95 PTE categories (SD = 3.34). Using the LEC categories, the most frequently endorsed category was physical assault (n = 127, 76.0%); followed by transportation accident (n = 120, 71.9%); assault with a weapon (n = 108, 64.7%); life threatening illness or injury (n = 96, 57.5%); sudden, unexpected death of someone close (n = 96, 57.5%); natural disaster (n = 86, 51.5%); combat/warzone exposure (n = 83, 49.7%); fire or explosion (n = 77, 46.1%); serious accident (n = 70, 41.9%); exposure to toxic substance (n = 60, 35.9%); unwanted sexual experience other than sexual assault (n = 58, 34.7%); sexual assault (n = 53, 31.7%); causing serious injury, harm, or death to someone else (n = 44, 26.4%); other severe human suffering (n = 41, 24.6%); witnessing sudden, violent death (n = 33, 19.8%); and captivity (n = 18, 10.8%).
