Examining Moral Injury in Legal-Involved Veterans: Psychometric Properties of the Moral Injury Events Scale.

Federal practitioner : for the health care professionals of the VA, DoD, and PHS Pub Date : 2025-04-01 Epub Date: 2025-04-15 DOI:10.12788/fp0573

W Blake Martin, Nicholas Holder, Ryan Holliday, Haekyung Jeon-Slaughter, James P LePage

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Abstract

Background: Veterans comprise about 8% of the incarcerated US population. Legal system involvement may result in exposure to events that violate moral expectations (ie, moral injury). Currently, there are no validated measures for assessing legal-related moral injury.

Methods: The goal of this study was to conduct a psychometric evaluation of an adapted version of the Moral Injury Events Scale (MIES) to assess moral injury among legal-involved individuals. This study collected demographic and clinical data via a semistructured survey. Veterans then completed the original and adapted versions of the MIES, the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5, and Personal Health Questionnaire-9.

Results: One hundred veterans with a history of incarceration completed the MIES and an adapted version for legal-involved persons (MIES-LIP). More than 90% of participants reported potentially morally injurious experiences in the legal context. While confirmatory factor analysis did not support the proposed factor structure of the MIES-LIP, an exploratory factor analysis supported a 2-factor solution characterized by self- and other-directed moral injury.

Conclusions: The MIES-LIP demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including good reliability and convergent validity, suggesting that legal-related moral injury is a salient and distinct phenomenon affecting legal-involved veterans. Future studies should consider the MIES-LIP as a tailored tool for legal-involved veterans.

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涉法退伍军人的道德伤害：道德伤害事件量表的心理测量特征。

背景：退伍军人约占美国监禁人口的8%。法律体系的介入可能导致暴露于违反道德期望的事件（即道德伤害）。目前，尚无有效的法律道德损害评估方法。方法：本研究的目的是对道德伤害事件量表（MIES）进行心理测量评估，以评估涉及法律的个体的道德伤害。本研究通过半结构化调查收集了人口统计学和临床数据。然后，退伍军人完成了原始版和改编版的创伤后应激障碍量表、DSM-5的创伤后应激障碍检查表和个人健康问卷-9。结果：100名有监禁史的退伍军人完成了MIES和法律相关人员改编版（MIES- lip）。超过90%的参与者报告了在法律背景下可能造成道德伤害的经历。虽然验证性因素分析不支持MIES-LIP提出的因素结构，但探索性因素分析支持以自我和他人导向的道德伤害为特征的双因素解决方案。结论：MIES-LIP具有较强的心理测量特性，具有良好的信度和收敛效度，表明法律相关道德伤害是影响涉法退伍军人的一个显著现象。未来的研究应考虑MIES-LIP作为一个量身定制的工具，涉及法律的退伍军人。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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Federal practitioner : for the health care professionals of the VA, DoD, and PHS

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