Psychometric properties of the Impact of Event Scale-6 in a sample of victims of bank robbery

Bank robberies are becoming a serious problem in Italy. This study aims to evaluate the validity and the reliability of the Italian version of Impact of Event Scale (IES)-6. It is also hypothesized that a potential posttraumatic disorder, as measured by the IES-6, is associated with mental health problems and several peritraumatic variables. A database was built from data collected through a survey of victims of robbery in an Italian bank. The final sample comprised 350 employees. This study tests different models of IES, comparing the validity of IES-6 with the 22-item original version (IES-R) and the 15-item Italian version (recently adopted in a sample of flood victims). A confirmatory factor analysis supported the IES-6 three-factor solution as the best model. In addition, the internal consistency of the IES-6 and the subscales was good. Outcomes revealed a robust structure supporting the composition of the IES-6 Italian version.