Exploring the Factor Structure of Police-Initiated Post-Traumatic Stress Symptomatology

Background: Prior research demonstrates that youth involved with the criminal justice system have higher levels of post-traumatic stress. Qualitative data suggests that interactions with the police can be a traumatic experience for youth – resulting in increased levels of trauma symptomatology, anxiety, stress, and depression. These factors increase the likelihood that youth will commit a delinquent act, resulting in further interactions with the police – creating a spiral of police interactions, PI-PTSS, and delinquency.

Though prior research indicates that interactions with the police can be a source of trauma for youth, prior research has yet to explore measures of trauma symptomatology that root youths’ trauma to interactions with the police. The present study explores the factor structure of items that measure police-initiated post-traumatic stress symptomatology (PI-PTSS).

Method: Data for this study are drawn from the Fragile Families Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). The FFCWS is a longitudinal survey that follows an ethnically and racially diverse birth cohort of children, and their families, through age 18. The study sample consisted of youths who had been stopped at least one time by the police and did not have missing data on any of the PI-PTSS items (n = 894). The majority of youth in the sample are black (54.7 %, n = 489), 69.9% (n = 625) of the sample are male, and roughly half of the sample is between the ages of 16 and 19 years old (51.7%, n = 464).

PI-PTSS was measured using nine items specifically assessing how frequently youths experienced post-traumatic stress symptoms in the context of their interactions with the police. The measure taps into the constructs of persistently re-experiencing the encounter, and negative changes in cognition and mood following the encounter. We first ran three exploratory factor analyses (EFA) on the PI-PTSS items – testing two, three, and four factor solutions. We then conducted a confirmatory factor analysis based on findings from the EFA.

Results: Findings from the EFA and CFA suggest a two factor solution. Both the EFA (RMSEA=0.021, CFI=0.997, TLI=0.995, SRMR=0.029) and CFA (RMSEA=0.031, CIF=0.991, TLI=0.988, WRMR=0.874) demonstrated good model fit. Factor 1 consisted of PI-PTSS items that reflect intrusion symptoms (e.g., Remembering experience brings back feelings of being stopped). Factor 2 can be described as avoidance behaviors (e.g., you try to remove the time you were stopped from your memory).

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that the PI-PTSS items in the FFCWS mirror DSM-5 criterion for post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the PI-PTSS explicitly link these trauma symptoms to interactions with the police. A key limitation of this study is that the PI-PTSS items in the FFCWS were not designed to be a diagnostic tool for post-traumatic stress disorder. Our findings suggest that it is important to develop a valid and reliable diagnostic tool for PI-PTSS. Doing so can lead to the exploration of the potential impact that PI-PTSS has on youth, and lead to more effective trauma-informed interventions for youth who experience PI-PTSS.