Summary

The preliminary validation in Chile of the Infantile Scale of Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPSS) is presented. This instrument was developed by Johnson, Feeny, and Treadwell (2001) to evaluate PTSD in children and adolescents exposed to traumatic events, in accordance with DSM-IV criteria. The sample consisted of 75 Chilean children and adolescents of the Bío Bío region of Chile who suffered sexual abuse or rape. The results indicate high internal consistency, measured with Cronbach’s alpha, of 0.916. The convergent validity with the criterion of expert judgment is also adequate, with significant punctuations in the scale and all the subscales