Comparison of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Structure Models in Black/African American and European American Patients Receiving Public Mental Health Services

Authors

• Weili Lu, Rutgers University
• Nnamdi Pole, Smith CollegeFollow
• Ke Wang, Rutgers University
• Yuane Jia, Rutgers University - Newark
• Krista Rogers, Rutgers University
• Amanda Siriram, City University of New York
• Lucille Brown, Rutgers University
• Yuan Yao, Rutgers University
• Philip T. Yanos, City University of New York
• William Waynor, Rutgers University
• Kenneth J. Gill, Rutgers University
• J. Scott Parrott, Rutgers University - Newark

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publication Title

Psychiatry Research

Abstract

Prior studies found that Black/African Americans have more trauma exposure and higher PTSD rates than their European American counterparts but less professional mental health service utilization. Other studies find underdiagnosis of PTSD in Black/African Americans with SMI, perhaps because of a failure to use culturally valid diagnostic tools. To determine whether the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5) measures PTSD similarly in Black/African American and European Americans with serious mental illness (SMI; i.e., schizophrenia, bipolar, treatment-resistant depression), we examined the PTSD symptom factor structure based on the PCL-5 responses of 343 patients (195 Black/African Americans and 148 European Americans) with SMI receiving public mental health services in three Northeastern states. The best-fitting model was Armour’s 7-factor model, with strong support for the DSM-5 4-factor model. The PTSD factor structure was invariant between Black/African American and European American groups. Symptom cluster co-occurrence did not differ by ethnicity, further affirming measurement invariance. Overall, findings support the use of the PCL-5 for PTSD screening for both Black/African American and European American patients with SMI receiving public mental health services and for the cross-cultural phenotypic consistency of PTSD.

Keywords

Black/African American, Serious mental illness, Public mental health services, Measurement invariance, PTSD checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), PTSD screening

Volume

355

First Page

116858

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

Version

Version of Record

Recommended Citation

Lu, Weili; Pole, Nnamdi; Wang, Ke; Jia, Yuane; Rogers, Krista; Siriram, Amanda; Brown, Lucille; Yao, Yuan; Yanos, Philip T.; Waynor, William; Gill, Kenneth J.; and Parrott, J. Scott, "Comparison of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Structure Models in Black/African American and European American Patients Receiving Public Mental Health Services" (2026). Psychology: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/psy_facpubs/262