2.3 Materials
The Trauma Assessment and Life Experiences Checklist (TALE; Carr et al., 2018) defined exposure to a traumatic event. The TALE consists of 20 items relating to possible traumatic events an individual may have experienced. The TALE Interview was found to have satisfactory test-retest reliability convergent and construct validity (Carr et al., 2018). This was a novel use of Part A TALE of the Assessment in a retrospective chart review methodology. Due to the ubiquity of experiences of psychotic symptoms and hospitalisation within the sample and without the opportunity to explore individual responses to these experiences through an interview, an alternative, the TALE 14 is reported here; these are the first 14 items of the TALE which indicate trauma-exposure prior to the experience of psychosis. Exposure to trauma was dummy-coded into binary variables. The age at which the trauma occurred was recorded.
Work-Related Stress (WRS) and Interpersonal Stressors were included as dependent dummy-coded binary variables. WRS was defined as “the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities, and which challenge their ability to cope ” (Leka et al., 2003, p. 3). Interpersonal Stressors were defined as “stressful episodes between two or more people that involve quarrels, arguments, negative attitudes or behaviour, an uncomfortable atmosphere during a conversation or activity, and concern about hurting others’ feelings ” (Kato, 2014, p.100).
Demographic variables collected were the age, sex, duration of untreated psychosis in months (DUP), service disengagement, and substance use were also collected. Service disengagement and substance use were binary-coded. Sex was recorded as male or female in the case files, so no other options for sex are included in the recorded data.
The scales for the assessment of positive symptoms (SAPS) (Andreasen, 1984a), and the scales for the assessment of negative symptoms (SANS) (Andreasen, 1984b) were used to assess positive and negative symptom severity. The Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS) (Addington et al., 1990) was used to assess depressive symptoms in psychosis. The Covid Traumatic Stress Symptoms scale from the Covid Stress Scales (Taylor et al., 2020) was used to identify retrospectively Covid-19-related trauma (CRT). The internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity of the traumatic stress symptoms scale was satisfactory (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.93) (Taylor et al., 2020).