The Crisis Support Scale: psychometric qualities and further validation

The objective of the present study was to provide a further validation of the Crisis Support Scale, which is a short scale for measuring social support after a crisis has occurred. The data from eleven trauma Studies of 4213 subjects were used to investigate the psychometric properties of the scale and the differences that emerge due to age, gender, and type of trauma. The scale appears to be very robust. Some aspects of crisis support seem to decrease as time goes by while others increase. Women survivors report less support than men both right after the trauma and later on. The younger survivors tend to report the least support in the acute phase although this picture is reversed later on. The various types of trauma have different item profiles, which supports the concurrent validity of the scale. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.