Q J Med 2004; 97: 1-5
© Association of Physicians 2004; all rights reserved.
Editorial |
Recognizing post-traumatic stress disorder
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe and complex disorder precipitated by exposure to a psychologically distressing event. PTSD first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM-III) in 1980,1,2 arising from studies of the Vietnam war, and of civilian victims of natural and man-made disasters.3,4 However, the study of PTSD dates back more than 100 years. Before 1980, post-traumatic syndromes were recognized by different names, including railway spine, shell shock, traumatic (war) neurosis, concentration-camp syndrome, and rape-trauma syndrome.2,3 The symptoms described in these syndromes overlap considerably with what we now recognize as PTSD. According to the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM-IV-TR),5 the essential feature of PTSD is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor characterized by: direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other
Division of Neuroscience Department of Psychiatry Columbia University New York USA e-mail: LS2003@columbia.edu