The Factorial Invariance Across Gender of Three Well-Supported Models Further Evidence for a Five-Factor Model of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Three well-supported latent models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; i.e., Emotional Numbing, Dysphoria, and Dysphoric Arousal [DA] models) were examined using factorial invariance across gender. There is a notable lack of studies that have investigated the factorial invariance of the PTSD models across gender, and, to date, no study has assessed the factorial invariance of the DA model across gender. The current sample consisted of 571 children and adolescent earthquake survivors (297 male and 274 female participants) from China. The results indicated that the 17 symptoms of PTSD have equivalent factor loadings between the male and female participants. Furthermore, the female participants evidenced more severe manifestations of PTSD. Moreover, the newly proposed five-factor DA model provided superior fit to the data compared with the Emotional Numbing and Dysphoria models. The implication of these results is discussed.