Assessing functional impairment in a working military population: the Walter Reed functional impairment scale.

Measurement of functional impairment is a priority for the military and other professional work groups routinely exposed to stressful traumatic events as part of their occupation. Standard measures of impairment used in general or chronically ill populations contain many items not suitable for these populations, and include mental health symptoms items that are not true measures of functioning. We created a new, 14-item scale-the Walter Reed Functional Impairment Scale-to assess functioning in 4 domains (physical, occupational, social, and personal).

Modifying instructions on the posttraumatic stress disorder checklist for military populations does not change symptom reporting.

This study investigates whether modifying the instructions of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL) for military survey research changes posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom reporting or prevalence. The sample consisted of 1691 soldiers who were randomly assigned to complete 1 of 3 versions of the PCL, which differed only in the wording of the instructions. Group differences in demographic variables, combat exposure, mean PTSD symptoms, and PTSD prevalence estimates were examined.