Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS) Test
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- Never
- Periodically
- Regularly
- Very often
- Almost constantly
- No symptoms
- Mild
- Moderate
- Severe
- Very severe
- Never
- Occasionally
- Regularly
- Very often
- Almost constantly
Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS) Test - Description and methodology of the test
People seeking a clearer picture of how posttraumatic reactions affect their everyday experience may find the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS) Test useful. As a PTSD symptom assessment, it helps a respondent consider intrusive memories, avoidance, mood changes, sleep problems, or heightened alertness and understand the overall burden reflected in the result.
What This Assessment Explores
Posttraumatic stress symptoms can affect memory, emotion, sleep, relationships, and attention after a distressing event. As a trauma symptom checklist, this questionnaire helps people organize reactions and consider their overall symptom burden.
The questionnaire addresses several connected areas, including:
- Intrusion indicates how often memories, images, dreams, reminders, or physical distress return.
- Avoidance shows efforts to suppress event-related thoughts, feelings, activities, or situations.
- Mood and connection reflect reduced enjoyment, emotional restriction, pessimism, or feeling cut off.
- Arousal and functioning capture sleep problems, irritability, concentration difficulty, nervousness, startle, and alertness.
The DTS is scored from 0-136 and is used to screen for and assess PTSD symptom severity. Displayed bands are Lower symptom level (0-39) and Elevated symptom level (40-136). In source research, 40 is associated with a high likelihood of PTSD, and repeated scores can monitor change.
Methodology and Evidence Base
Each symptom prompt uses a frequency response, while follow-up items ask about severity. Choices move from absent or infrequent experiences to repeated or near-constant symptoms, and from no symptoms to very severe. The online questionnaire presents a total score, but its answer format does not state item-by-item weighting; a separate scoring formula should not be inferred from the range.
The closest published reference is the instrument described in the 1997 study by Davidson and colleagues. This questionnaire is conceptually consistent with that work and is not an adaptation of it. Later studies reported reference values in general-population samples and examined how well the scale distinguished PTSD in military veterans. The evidence supports structured assessment and monitoring, but it does not establish that this online version has its own norms.
The questionnaire functions as a PTSD screening tool, while its result indicates symptom burden rather than providing a diagnosis. Self-report can be shaped by memory, current stress, willingness to disclose, and self-awareness, so interpretation should consider the event, symptom duration, and daily functioning.
- Davidson, J. R. T., Book, S. W., Colket, J. T., Tupler, L. A., Roth, S., David, D., Hertzberg, M., Mellman, T., Beckham, J. C., Smith, R., Davison, R. M., Katz, R., and Feldman, M. E. (1997). Assessment of a new self-rating scale for post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological Medicine, 27(1), 153-160. 10.1017/S0033291796004229
- Davidson, J. R. T., Tharwani, H. M., and Connor, K. M. (2002). Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS): Normative scores in the general population and effect sizes in placebo-controlled SSRI trials. Depression and Anxiety, 15(2), 75-78. 10.1002/da.10021
- McDonald, S. D., Beckham, J. C., Morey, R. A., and Calhoun, P. S. (2009). The validity and diagnostic efficiency of the Davidson Trauma Scale in military veterans who have served since September 11th, 2001. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 23(2), 247-255. 10.1016/j.janxdis.2008.07.007
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