Assessing interpersonal trauma in older adult women

Interpersonal traumatic experiences (childhood abuse, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence) are common in older adult women and associated with negative short-term and long-term outcomes. Thus, assessing trauma symptoms is essential to providing adequate services. This article explores challenges of measuring trauma in older women, describes the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (Foa, 1995), and evaluates the appropriateness of this instrument using data from a current study of older adult women. Symptom severity scores did not consistently reflect the experiences of the sample. Eschewing a clinical interview to assess the impact of interpersonal trauma in older adult women may be a mistake.