Page 138 - Post-traumatic stress disorder in adults with mild intellectual disability: Screening, assessment, and brief intensive EMDR therapy

Chapter 6
ID (Jopp & Keys, 2001; McNally et al., 2021; Wilsocki & Zalta, 2024), which
often lead to PTSD not being recognized in adults with MID-BIF. The TS-
ID may therefore help to clarify whether trauma-related symptoms may
underlie these behavioural or psychological problems. Second, the TS-ID
can be used after an individual has experienced a potentially traumatic event
to actively monitor whether PTSD symptoms develop. Recently, a study in
individuals with MID-BIF has shown that also stressful life events can result
in PTSD symptoms (Rouleaux et al., 2025). Therefore, the TS-ID may also be
considered following such events. Finally, given that the TS-ID and the DITS-
ID are currently the only measuring instruments specifically developed for
screening and classifying PTSD in adults with MID-BIF, it would be advisable
to consider including these instruments when de current PTSD guidelines are
updated. At present, the available guidelines do not include any assessment
tool suitable for this population, and acknowledging these tools help
professionals to better recognise and assess PTSD in adults with MID-BIF.
Building on this key finding, several suggestions can be given for future
research. Like adults with MID-BIF, children with MID-BIF also have an
increased risk of experiencing adverse life events compared with children
without MID-BIF (e.g., Dion et al., 2018; McDonnell et al., 2019; Mevissen
et al., 2016; Vervoort-Schel et al., 2021). However, no validated screening
instrument for PTSD according to the DSM-5-TR is currently available for
children with MID-BIF. Future research should adapt and evaluate trauma
screeners for this group so that PTSD can be better recognised in children
with MID-BIF. A second suggestion concerns examining whether the TS-
ID is also suitable for use in research and clinical practice to evaluate the
effectiveness of trauma-focused treatment. In Study 1 (Chapter 2), the
reliability and validity of the TS-ID were established, but its sensitivity,
that is its ability to detect meaningful change over time, has not yet been
investigated. Because the TS-ID can be completed in a relatively short time
(10 minutes) and uses a four-point response scale, it may be a practical
instrument for monitoring change during or after trauma treatment. In
Study 3 (Chapter 4) and several other ongoing intervention studies, the TS-
ID is already being used for this purpose. However, systematic research
into its sensitivity is needed to determine whether the TS-ID can reliably
capture treatment-related changes in adults with MID-BIF.
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