The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: A Revision Integrating Existential and Spiritual Change

TLDR

Posttraumatic growth includes a spiritual change domain, but the current PTGI measures it with only two items focused on religiosity and spiritual understanding. The study seeks to expand the PTGI by adding four new spiritual–existential change items to better reflect diverse spiritual experiences across cultures. The expanded PTGI, called PTGI‑X, was developed and tested with samples from the United States, Turkey, and Japan. Analyses across U.S., Turkish, and Japanese samples showed that the four new SEC items broadened the PTGI to capture non‑religious spiritual growth, correlated with original SC items, exhibited strong internal reliability, and the 25‑item PTGI‑X’s five‑factor structure was confirmed, supporting its use in diverse populations with less dominant religious beliefs.

Abstract

Spiritual Change (SC) is one of 5 domains of posttraumatic growth (PTG). The current Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) assesses this area of growth with only 2 items, one focusing on religiosity and the other focusing on spiritual understanding. The addition of 4 newly developed spiritual–existential change (SEC) items, creating an expanded PTGI (Posttraumatic Growth Inventory‐X), reflects a diversity of perspectives on spiritual–existential experiences that are represented in different cultures. Samples were obtained from 3 countries: the United States ( n = 250), Turkey ( n = 502), and Japan ( n = 314). Analyses indicated that the newly added items capture additional experiences of growth outside traditional religious concepts, yet still are correlated with the original SC items, especially in the U.S. and Turkish samples. Relationships of the PTGI‐X to established predictors of PTG, event‐related rumination, and core beliefs, were as predicted in all 3 countries. The new 6‐item SEC factor demonstrated high internal reliability, and the 5‐factor structure of the expanded scale was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. The resulting 25‐item PTGI‐X can be used as a validated instrument in a wide range of samples in which traditional religious beliefs are less dominant.