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Faculty Publication: Assistant Professor of Social Work Kerry Lee

December 11, 2021

"Development and Validation of the Inventory of Stress and Coping for African American Survivors of Homicide Victims"

Authors: Sharpe, Tanya L.; Iwamoto, Derek Kenji; Lee, Kerry A.; Anderson, Jheanelle M.

Source: Psychological Trauma-Theory Research Practice and Policy, DOI: 10.1037/tra0001246, May 2022

Type of Publication: Article in a Periodical

Abstract: 

Objective: African Americans disproportionately experience homicide. However, validated measures designed to assess the traumatic impact of coping with murder for surviving family members and friends of homicide victims are absent from research. This article describes four studies that contributed to the development and preliminary validation of the Inventory of Stress and Coping for African American Survivors of Homicide Victims (ISCASHV). The ISCASHV is a measure that assesses multicomponents (e.g., stress, appraisals, stigma, coping) of the sociocultural and psychological processes in which African Americans cope with homicide.

Method and results: Studies 2-4 provide strong support for the multicomponent 42-item scale consisting of five factors: cultural trauma, reactions to homicide, culture of homicide, racial appraisal, and coping. The ISCASHV demonstrates strong construct validity evidence and good internal consistency estimates. Each of the five measures demonstrated a high test-retest estimate for a 2-week period, suggesting the temporal stability of the factors.

Conclusions: Results suggest that the ISCASHV is a promising multicomponent measure that assesses the racial- and sociocultural-bound manifestation of homicide-related grief for African American survivors of homicide victims. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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