Posttraumatic cognitions play a prominent role in research on PTSD development and recovery, but the length of the existing Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI) has made repeated measurement impractical. The present study developed and validated a brief Dutch version of the PTCI (PTCI-9) using data from 383 treatment-seeking and college participants (Van Emmerik et al., 2006). 

Two versions of the PTCI-9 were developed and compared: a top-down version based on the English PTCI-9 (Wells et al., 2017) and a bottom-up version derived from an exploratory factor analysis on the full PTCI. Both versions retained the three-factor structure and showed good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminative validity, though the top-down version demonstrated superior model fit and was therefore selected as the recommended Dutch PTCI-9. It is concluded that the Dutch PTCI-9 is a reliable and valid brief measure that enables repeated assessment of posttraumatic cognitions, supporting future research into the mechanisms underlying PTSD recovery.