A scheme for categorizing traumatic military events.

The team built a six-box coding sheet for ugly war-zone moments. The boxes cover fear events, moral injury, aftermath of violence, and three other types.

Trained raters read written accounts and picked the best box for each event. The study checked how often two raters picked the same box.

Raters agreed almost every time. The scheme also showed early signs of construct validity, meaning the boxes captured real differences.

Military trauma is more than fear-based PTSD. Moral injury and witnessing cruelty sit in separate boxes.

Lemons et al. (2015) and Livingston et al. (2018) did the same trick for reinforcers. They put edibles into flavor categories so you can skip long preference tests. Heinicke et al. (2012) uses the same shortcut idea, but for trauma instead of snacks.

Lecavalier et al. (2006) also validated a subscale for people with severe ID. Both papers show that short category lists can still be trustworthy if raters agree.

Vassos et al. (2023) warn that change can look slow at first. About 7% of single-case graphs show a lingering baseline pattern. If you code trauma events over time, remember that early data points might still look like the old pattern even when change has started.

If you work with veterans or active-duty clients, you now have a quick way to sort their war stories. Six boxes give you a shared language for case notes, treatment plans, or research files. You can train staff in one hour and reach good agreement. Use the codes to spot moral injury cases that classic PTSD screens miss, then match them to treatments that target guilt and shame.