{"id":114,"date":"2014-09-10T21:22:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T21:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/?page_id=114"},"modified":"2015-10-06T18:31:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T18:31:51","slug":"ptsd","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/clinical-services\/anxiety-and-its-disorders\/ptsd\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>How Do Clinicians Define \u201cTrauma\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Traumatic events are specifically defined as they pertain to the PTSD diagnosis.\u00a0Trauma is defined as having directly experienced, witnessed, or confronted with\u00a0actual or threatened death, serious harm or injury, or sexual violence. Some\u00a0examples of traumatic events follow below:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Directly experiencing military combat, violent personal assault (sexual\u00a0assault, physical attack, robbery, mugging), being kidnapped, being taken\u00a0hostage, a terrorist attack, torture, incarceration as a prisoner of war or in a\u00a0concentration camp, natural or manmade disasters, or severe automobile\u00a0accidents.<\/li>\n<li>Witnessing serious injury or unnatural death of another person due to violent\u00a0assault, accident, war, or disaster, or a dead body or body parts.<\/li>\n<li>Learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death\u00a0or injury experienced by a family member or other close associates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that a life-threatening illness or medical condition is not considered a\u00a0trauma unless it involves sudden, accidental, or catastrophic events. Also note\u00a0that an event that occurred to your close family member or friend is considered a\u00a0trauma when it is violent or accidental (e.g., personal assault, suicide, serious\u00a0accident or injury).<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>PTSD is a disorder defined by four sets of symptoms that are common following\u00a0a serious trauma, but persist in individuals who eventually develop PTSD. \u00a0These\u00a0symptom clusters include (a) re-experiencing symptoms, (b) avoidance\u00a0symptoms, (c) negative disturbances in mood and cognitions, and \u00a0(c) arousal\u00a0symptoms. \u00a0Re-experiencing symptoms include having frequent unwanted\u00a0thoughts about a previous trauma, feeling as though the trauma were happening\u00a0again, and having intense physical and emotional reactions to trauma.\u00a0Avoidance of thoughts, feelings, situations, people, places and other reminders\u00a0of trauma are thought to be the main driver of PTSD symptoms. \u00a0Avoidance\u00a0provides short-term relief from PTSD symptoms, but also serves to maintain\u00a0PTSD symptoms in the long-run. \u00a0Disturbances in mood, thoughts, and beliefs\u00a0are common following traumatic experiences and may include an inability to\u00a0recall important aspects of what happened, negative trauma-related beliefs about\u00a0one&#8217;s self, or viewing others and the world as more dangerous than they actually\u00a0are, feeling disconnected from others, loss of interest in previously enjoyed\u00a0activities, and\u00a0emotional numbing, which commonly involves feeling a restricted\u00a0range of positive emotions, but this often also extends to negative emotions (e.g.,\u00a0feeling unable to cry, or feeling numb after an intense acute period of distress).\u00a0Finally, arousal symptoms include a range of both emotional and physical signs\u00a0of anxiety, sleep disruption, irritability and outbursts of anger, difficulty\u00a0concentrating, an exaggerated startle response, and prolonged periods of feeling\u00a0&#8220;on edge&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How common is PTSD?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although the majority of the general population (~60%) will be exposed to a\u00a0traumatic event, and PTSD symptoms are common following exposure to\u00a0trauma, the lifetime prevalence of PTSD is approximately 7 to 8%.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the risk factors for developing PTSD?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Individual characteristics that have been shown to increase risk for PTSD include\u00a0being female, having lower socio-economic status, lower intelligence, less\u00a0education, prior psychiatric history, history of abuse or childhood adversity, and a\u00a0family history of psychiatric illness (Brewin, Andrews, &amp; Valentine, 2000; Ozer,\u00a0Best, Lipsey, &amp; Weiss, 2003). Trauma characteristics associated with developing\u00a0PTSD include the level of distress and feelings of unreality that occur during\u00a0trauma exposure, feelings of helplessness and loss of control. Also,\u00a0interpersonal traumas in which an individual is victimized by a perpetrator (e.g.\u00a0sexual or physical assault) are more likely to lead to PTSD than other traumas\u00a0(e.g., accidents or natural disasters).<\/p>\n<p><strong>How is PTSD treated, and how effective are existing treatments?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Based on a review of the existing literature on evidence-based treatments for\u00a0PTSD, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have endorsed exposure-based\u00a0treatments, including Prolonged Exposure (PE), as the most effective form of\u00a0treatment for PTSD. There is also some evidence that anti-depressants (i.e.,\u00a0selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs) are beneficial, but these\u00a0benefits appear to exist only during treatment, and medications are generally less\u00a0effective than exposure based treatments in the long-term.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Links to additional PTSD-related information:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.adaa.org\/understanding-anxiety\/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd\">Information on Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA).<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abct.org\/Information\/?m=mInformation&amp;fa=fs_PTSD\">Information on PTSD from the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Do Clinicians Define \u201cTrauma\u201d? Traumatic events are specifically defined as they pertain to the PTSD diagnosis.\u00a0Trauma is defined as having directly experienced, witnessed, or confronted with\u00a0actual or threatened death, serious harm or injury, or sexual violence. Some\u00a0examples of traumatic events follow below: Directly experiencing military combat, violent personal assault (sexual\u00a0assault, physical attack, robbery, mugging), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":99,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-114","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"site-graphic":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"sgv287","author_link":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/author\/sgv287\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"How Do Clinicians Define \u201cTrauma\u201d? Traumatic events are specifically defined as they pertain to the PTSD diagnosis.\u00a0Trauma is defined as having directly experienced, witnessed, or confronted with\u00a0actual or threatened death, serious harm or injury, or sexual violence. Some\u00a0examples of traumatic events follow below: Directly experiencing military combat, violent personal assault (sexual\u00a0assault, physical attack, robbery, mugging),&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/114\/revisions\/942"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/labs.la.utexas.edu\/telch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}