This article describes a psychometric analysis of the trauma practices questionnaire, an
instrument designed to assess mental health provider practice patterns with a specific
focus on the use of best practice technology with traumatized populations. Using the
responses of 888 mental health professionals, an exploratory factor analysis with an
oblique rotation was conducted on a twenty-six-item scale, resulting in a seven-factor
solution. Based on the results, implications for instrument revisions are discussed, and
specifications for future confirmatory factor analyses are delineated.
Keywords: exploratory factor analysis; evidence-based practice; trauma practices
Over the past two decades, improving mental health practice by developing and
disseminating best practice guidelines and empirically investigating clinical treat-
ment approaches has been a national priority. Organizations and entities such as
the National Institute of Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service
Administration, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and the American
Academy for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have allocated considerable
resources to the dissemination of empirical evidence to inform the clinical practice
patterns of mental health providers who treat adults and children suffering from
the effects of trauma exposure. A report by the National Advisory Mental Health
Council’s Clinical Treatment and Services Research Workgroup at the National
Institute of Health recommended that the National Institute of Mental Health
portfolio be expanded in the domains of efficacy, effectiveness, practice, and ser-
vice systems research to foster integration of best practice protocols across these
fields, and to expedite the implementation of research-based protocols into prac-
tice settings.
An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the
Trauma Practices Questionnaire
Ginny Sprang and Carlton Craig
Ginny Sprang, PhD, and Carlton Craig, PhD, are associate professors at the University of Ken-
tucky in Lexington.
© 2007 Lyceum Books, Inc., Best Practices in Mental Health, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 2007