PTGI: Posttraumatic Growth Inventory

What this assessment is

The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, or PTGI, is a 21-item self-report measure of positive changes that a person believes followed a highly stressful or traumatic experience.

Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun introduced it in a 1996 development study.

The PTGI measures perceived growth. It does not measure PTSD severity, prove recovery, or show that adversity was beneficial.

Growth and distress can exist together.

Who it was designed for

The original measure was developed from interviews with people who had faced major adversity and tested in university students who reported difficult experiences.

Later studies used the PTGI across many events, ages, cultures, and health conditions. Results differ across those groups.

The standard PTGI has 21 items. The 10-item short form and the 25-item PTGI-X are separate versions with different ranges.

Name the version.

Language and cultural context matter, especially for beliefs about relationships, spirituality, strength, and life priorities.

How it is administered

The respondent considers a specific crisis or difficult experience. They rate how much each positive change occurred because of that experience.

Each response runs from 0, no change, to 5, a very great degree of change.

The standard form does not ask whether every reported change is visible to other people or reflected in behavior. It records the respondent's own appraisal.

Use the same target experience and version when comparing repeated scores.

What it measures

The original PTGI has five domains:

• relating to others
• new possibilities
• personal strength
• spiritual change
• appreciation of life

The domains describe different ways a person may perceive change. They are related and may not behave as fully independent traits in every population.

The PCL-5 measures recent PTSD symptoms. The CD-RISC-25 measures resilience resources. Neither is interchangeable with perceived change after an event.

Keep the constructs separate.

How scoring works

Score each of the 21 responses from 0 to 5. Add all responses for a total from 0 to 105.

Higher totals indicate more reported positive change attributed to the event.

The five domain ranges are:

• relating to others: 0 to 35
• new possibilities: 0 to 25
• personal strength: 0 to 20
• spiritual change: 0 to 10
• appreciation of life: 0 to 15

There are no reverse-scored items.

Do not replace a missing answer with zero. No single missing-response method applies across every study.

How to interpret a PTGI score

Interpret the result as a continuous self-report of perceived positive change.

There are no universal low, moderate, and high bands.

A higher total is not always better. It does not show that distress has resolved, that the change is stable, or that another person would observe the same growth.

Review the total with the five domain scores and the person's own account. One person may report stronger relationships and continued PTSD symptoms. Another may report little growth without being stuck or unwell.

Do not set growth as a requirement for recovery.

What the score cannot tell you

The PTGI cannot diagnose PTSD, depression, or any other condition. It cannot measure trauma exposure or determine whether an event meets a diagnostic definition.

It also cannot prove that reported change was caused by the event. Memory, current mood, social expectations, and a person's theory about their own life can influence answers.

A low score is not failure. A high score is not evidence that support is unnecessary.

Use separate measures for symptoms, functioning, safety, and quality of life.

Evidence and limitations

The original study supported one total and five related domains. Later research has repeatedly found strong relationships between the domains.

A 2018 analysis found limited evidence that the five domain scores had meaningfully different relationships with outside measures. That does not make the domains useless, but it argues against overinterpreting small differences between them.

A broader structural review also describes variation across samples and versions.

The PTGI records a person's current account of change. Treat that account with respect and without turning it into proof of objective growth.